Looking at more partnerships

Three years ago, President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative, to link vast transcontinental swathes with a common economic thread. The initiative brought unprecedented opportunities for companies to expand their business and access new markets. Lyu Ning, general manager for ship-out business of Schneider Electric China, explains how the initiative helped the company this year, and what it intends to do in 2017 to make the most of the still-untapped opportunities.

How do you plan to work with Chinese partners in the country and with others along the Belt and Road Initiative in 2017?

We plan to form more partnerships with China's power, transportation and energy companies to develop big-ticket projects along the Belt and Road Initiative in 2017, to further diversify our global sales.

For instance, we signed a strategic cooperative agreement with China National Building Materials Group Co in 2015, working together closely with them on several projects in Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria.

What can you offer to your Chinese partners?

Schneider Electric is able to provide reliable, efficient, connected and sustainable comprehensive solutions to help Chinese companies export their excess industrial capacity and achieve innovation and open development.

We not only help customers finish projects on time and without quality worries, but show them how to transcend differences in technical standards and cross the cultural barriers existing between China and African countries.

How do you compete with other European companies that have been aggressively seizing EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) deals on the Initiative?

Schneider Electric offers global services with vertical management and solutions to meet the needs of different customers, which is inseparable from rich practice experiences on EPC industries.

Over the past three years, Schneider Electric has partnered with China Machinery Engineering Corp to build a power distribution network project in Senegal. It also worked with Power Construction Corporation of China to build a solar project in Algeria.

Do you have any specific cases to share with us?

CET (China Electric Power Equipment and Technology Co), a subsidiary of State Grid Corporation of China, is one of our EPC customers. In Ethiopia, for the Addis Ababa light rail project, the requirements for the main equipment were higher than normal international standards. Given the high altitude of the project, no manufacturers could meet the new standards. But our experts worked with CET's engineers and provided a comprehensive solution that not only met the technical requirements but helped finish the project on time.