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
Economic experts have leveled scathing criticism towards U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" policy, warning of an unprecedented shockwave in the global economy and a prolonged "tariff war."
Trump on Wednesday declared a 10-percent baseline tariff on imports from all trading partners and imposed higher rates on specific ones, with the decision provoking sharp rebuke from economists, trade experts and foreign governments who view it as a misguided effort to utilize tariffs as a crude tool to tackle intricate trade disparities.
Radhika Desai, director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, emphasized the chaos and uncertainty triggered by Trump's tariff move in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) on Monday.
"The world has just suffered a major, major shock. It is not clear when it will end. And President Trump has ratcheted it up the level of uncertainty. The level of uncertainty was already shooting up the moment he was elected and now it is through the roof. Stock markets are tumbling, countries have been slapped with tariffs. I read in the paper that about 50 countries have lined up to negotiate with the Trump administration, seeking a reduction in tariff. It is not at all clear that the Trump administration has the administrative capacity to engage in negotiations with all these countries. So, it is a big mess," she said.
"On top of that, I am reading that congresspeople, corporate leaders and other such influential people are afraid to oppose the Trump administration. Practically everybody can see that these tariffs are nonsense. And on top of that, the formula that they published, that according to which they calculate the tariffs is complete rubbish," Desai added.
Global stock markets traded sharply lower on Monday as financial turmoil sparked by the tariffs escalated recession fears worldwide.
In a separate interview with CGTN on Monday, Qu Qiang, a research fellow with the Belt and Road Research Center at Minzu University of China, warned that the U.S. tariffs are already leading to widespread fear of prolonged uncertainty and potential economic losses.
"I think the reason really is very obvious. The very short-term reason is that, take a look at the weekend in the last week of the European and American stock market. I think this is a flat pass and actually can trigger the global panic over this tariff war. And I think, the ultimate reason, I think, is coming from the reason behind that, which is Trump's policy against the whole global multilateral trading system, and he unilaterally put on a tariff war on everybody, no exceptions," said Qu.
"So, I think this very irrational status and standing of the American current government actually made the whole world panic, because you have to understand what we have seen right now, the global system, and also the global financial system, are based on the effect of what we call the 'one plus one, bigger than two,' which means when everybody are cooperating with each other, the whole economic side, the whole asset price will be bigger than we just singly 'plus' with each other. But when you try to reduce and remove the whole current system, probably you're going to see 'two minus one, smaller than one' effect. So, that's the reason why the whole globe has been fearing that the current situation will be lasting for longer and also the old paradigm for trade and also financial construction is going to be losing," he said.
The research fellow underscored that tariffs are likely to backfire for the U.S. economy.
"They are totally reasonable to have this kind of a projection about American economy, while American economy is not only American economy. You have to understand American economy is a very vital part of the whole global economy. So when Trump is trying to smash the other part of the supply chain all over the globe, it's not only destroying the other country or other economy, it's killing American vitality itself. So 'Make America great again' -- MAGA -- now means 'make America go away,'" said Qu.
Experts slam Trump's tariffs for sparking global economic turmoil
