U.S. company sees great business opportunities in China's equipment renewal program

The U.S. enterprise Otis, a world-leading elevator manufacturer, is cashing immense business opportunities arising from the China's equipment and consumer goods renewal programs particularly in the upgrading of over 40,000 residential elevators in 2024 alone.

Deeply involved in the Chinese market for 40 years, Otis has established production bases in China's Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Jiaxing, and has set up a global research and development center and a high-speed elevator center in Shanghai.

As the largest elevator market in the world where over 80 percent of the world's new elevators being produced here each year, China has already become a strategic hub in Otis' global operations.

In March of this year, China's State Council issued an action plan aimed at fostering large-scale equipment renewal and trading-in of consumer goods. Recently, detailed measures supporting the action plan have been fully rolled out. Specifically, in the field of aging elevators, plans for 2024 include the use of ultra-long special government bonds to support local governments in upgrading over 40,000 residential elevators that have been in service for more than 15 years.

Currently, China has approximately 800,000 elevators that have been in service for over 15 years, among which around 170,000 elevators have been in use for over 20 years.

This provides huge market for Otis, which is upgrading its products to better meet the increasing demand.

"We also have solutions for modernization of other buildings as technology ages. Just like you would change anything in your house, your car. As elevators hit 15 or 20 years, they're ready for technology upgrades as well," said Judy Marks, Chair and CEO of Otis Worldwide Corporation.

At one of Otis' factories in Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA), hundreds of elevators are manufactured every day. In 2023, the production of elevators, escalators, and lifts in China reached 1.557 million units. This massive market, combined with its advantages in the industrial supply chain, has encouraged foreign companies, including Otis, to continue expanding their operations and investments in China through technological empowering and innovation.

In 2019, Otis partnered with the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Radio and Television Tower to design a custom-made inclined elevator, tailored to the unique architectural features of the tower. This elevator is suspended between the tower's columns and is one of the first inclined elevators in China.

"The Otis inclined elevator has been a very distinctive sightseeing elevator introduced to the Oriental Pearl Tower in recent years. It operates on a 60-degree inclined track and transports nearly 2,000 tourists daily, greatly improving the transportation capacity of the tower," said Ao Junming, deputy general manager of Shanghai Oriental Pearl Radio and Television Tower Co., Ltd.

The President of Otis China Luo Xiaoli said China is a great market for innovations like this.

"As far as innovation and digitalization is concerned, all the indicators that China is a very open economy that enable us to continue to grow our talent, grow our business and at the same time, we have also experienced the market openness of this market. The internationalization is a very market-oriented economy which makes it very friendly for investments like Otis here in China," said .

U.S. company sees great business opportunities in China's equipment renewal program

The Israeli attacks on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are politically motivated said Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, at a press briefing in New York on Wednesday.

Lazzarini said the institute is facing the most serious crisis since its establishment in 1949, adding that Israel's cutting its relations with UNRWA and banning UNRWA from operating in the country and eastern Jerusalem are direct attacks on the institute and are completely politically motivated.

He said so far 234 staff of UNRWA have been killed in conflicts and a great number of its facilities have been destroyed. The institute is also facing a worldwide disinformation campaign aiming at undermining its legitimacy in the international community.

Lazzarini stressed that if UNRWA stops operating, the responsibility of providing education and medical services will be left to the occupying power.

"If UNRWA cannot operate, that means the UN will not be able to operate and to provide these critical services. And in that case, the only alternative and option is that the owners and the responsibility goes back to the occupying power, meaning that Israel will be responsible to provide these critical services," he said.

On Wednesday at the UN general assembly forth committee, Danny Danon, Israel's permanent representative to the UN, called for Lazzarini to resign in shame.

Lazzarini responded that Danon's remarks are not a personal attack but an attack on the function of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, which will not come to an end even if he resigns.

"I did not have a bilateral meeting with ambassador Danon. He made a call this morning at the fourth committee asking me to resign in shame. And basically, my answer to this is that if my person would really make a difference, this is certainly something I should envisage. But I don't think it is my person which is attacked. It is my function. It is a Commissioner-General which is primarily targeted today, and it is a part of this broader campaign to delegitimize the agency and UNRWA," he said. 

Lazzarini said the goal of Israel is to deprive Palestinians of their refugee status and make it impossible for them to return to the land that are now used as illegal settlements.

"The objective is to strip the Palestinian from the refugee status and also to unilaterally change the parameters for a political solution. It's a way to undermine the future aspiration of the Palestinian for self-determination. It's a way to undermine and to bury once for all the two-state solution. We have also seen that it's not just UNRWA which has been targeted. Any voices in the region supporting the Palestinian authorities supporting the pathway of a two-state solution started to be phased out," he said.

The Commissioner-General called on the member states of the UN to take emergency actions, preventing Israel from implementing relevant laws and clarifying the roles of UNRWA. 

He also urged the international community not to delay or stop their donation to the institute. He warned that the attacks on UNRWA are not only weakening the function of the UN but also destabilizing the international order established since the end of the WWII.

UN commissioner-general says Israeli attacks on UNRWA politically motivated