ABB business hits record high amid upgrading

A man cycles past the logo of Swiss industrial group ABB at an office building in Zurich October 24, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

ABB Group's business reached a new high in China last year, as the global power and engineering technologies supplier underwent its biggest expansion amid China's industrial upgrading boom.

Both orders and revenue of ABB China, the Chinese unit of the Swiss-Swedishgroup, reached $5.6 billion in 2013. Its revenue growth rose 7.7 percent from the previous year. ABB invested $136 million in the country last year. Its cumulative China investment has reached $1.8 billion.

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Gu Chunyuan, senior vice-president of ABB Group, said China's national development strategy now emphasizes quality economic growth as well as "new energy vehicle projects, as well as providing more industrial robots to optimize the nation's manufacturing structure.

China's surging wealth accumulation and fast ongoing urbanization pace have caused labor-intensive industries to struggle as they face a myriad of difficulties, such as recruitment problems and high employee turnover rates, especially in the country's computer, communication and consumer electronics product manufacturing sectors.

The nation's rapid economic growth has driven up labor costs and wages. The average labor cost in China has risen fast in the past five years, to more than 49,000 yuan ($8,485) a year in 2013 from less than 28,000 yuan a year in 2008, according to a report by Beijing-based institute of industrial economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in January.

"By combining customer demand, we have gradually shifted our focus on industrial robot research and development in China, from large robots oriented for automating to small robots for computer, communication and the industrial upgrading of consumer electronics products," Gu said.

ABB introduced a new type of robot IRB 120 to be developed in China last year. It is the company's fastest and most accurate six-axis robot. The robot is very small and as light as 25 kilograms, so it can be placed at any location or even hung upside down or mounted on the wall.