ZURICH (Reuters) – Siemens is seeing changing investment patterns by some customers regarding China as tensions rise between Washington and Beijing, Chief Executive Roland Busch said on Thursday.
Siemens, which reported third quarter earnings below forecasts, said clients were increasingly looking to build new facilities outside China, Busch said, echoing comments from rival engineering group ABB last month.
Tensions between the two countries have increased after the Biden administration on Wednesday announced new restrictions on U.S. investments in China in sensitive technology.
“We don’t see our customers moving out of China. In contrast we see our customers, local and international, believe in the Chinese market and they stay there,” Busch told reporters.
“Do they do incremental, new investments in China? Here we see a trend they would rather go to other places in order to see how to diversify and increase their resilience,” he added.
Although Siemens was still investing in China, its third biggest market, the German company was also spending more in other parts of Asia, the United States and Europe.
Still, it was too early to see what the impact of the new measures announced by the United States would be, Busch said, with the company following developments closely.
“We don’t see a direct impact on Siemens because the fields which are addressed are not really affecting us. It is more high tech, semiconductors and the like,” Busch said.
“We hope that the statement of the United States administration is still valid. They talk about building a very small fence, but a very high one. So they are very selective about what technology they put in the window.”
(Reporting by John Revill, Editing by Friederike Heine and David Evans)
