Chinese investments in Romania: Aiming potential

For many years, China has had only several large companies present and active in Romania, mainly in technology, energy, trade, farming and several newly announced ones in automotive.

2017-09-25 14:35:05 - From the Print Edition

The figures show that in January-December 2016, Romania-China trade exceeded 4.4 billion dollars, up 18.53 per cent year on year. China has surpassed UK to be Romania's eighth largest trading partner, becoming Romania's second largest trading partner outside the EU (following Turkey).
Romania's imports from China totalled 3.7 billion dollars, up 18.87 per cent year on year with China as Romania's sixth largest imports source (after Germany, Italy, Hungary, France and Poland), mainly importing electromechanical devices, audio equipment and engineering products.
Romania's exports to China totalled 680 million dollars, up 16.64 per cent year on year. China has been Romania's 20th exports destination, mainly exporting wood products, charcoal, nuclear reactor, boiler, engineering products and electronic and mechanical products.

ZTE Romania decided to be more focused to the Smart City concept

The local business environment will see a continuous development thanks to foreign investors by aiming at different economic sectors, Lorian Vintila, chief strategy officer Management at ZTE Romania, told The Diplomat-Bucharest. "I also consider that Romania, thanks to its educated citizens, has become a very attractive country for the Chinese corporations who are increasingly interested to invest in IT&C, energy, agriculture, infrastructure, oil and gas and other economic branches," Vintila added. "To be more precise, please look to the Romanian specialists who are continuously hired by the Chinese companies established in our country. Thanks to investors, Romania managed to develop services that are sought out all around the world, as well as outstanding finite products categories from medicine, automotive, and software to heavy industry and aviation goods. I am a representative of the telecom industry so I am deeply connected with energy power and similar sectors. In this respect, I should be focused on relating hydropower plants to the industry and solar panels to the residential customers. The non-polluting and renewable energy represents the alternative decision to protect the environment, to create new jobs and to answer the new energy consumption trend."

In his opinion, a major opportunity for foreign investors is also joining the new global trend named "Smart City concept": "This represents a dynamic and high-tech approach and challenge to future developed communities where the citizens are more protected and their daily activity will become much more easy and attractive."

Vintila explained: "This year we decided to change our local development strategy to be more focused on the Smart City concept. Therefore, ZTE Romania successfully accomplished three distinctive pilots referring to smart parking and smart lighting in three different cities and we are going to continue in this concept line.
"We also observe the development within a region and we are now prepared to submit our 3G/4G wireless solution to different countries where the telecom operators have started a corporate bidding process. ZTE Romania is focusing its efforts on demonstrating its outstanding 5G solutions to the local market in order to create the first complete live pilot for Pre5G.
These are our main goals for H2 2017 and our local team is fully determined and deeply motivated to perform according to market requirements, standards and trends.
"Since 2004 when ZTE got the rights for business in Romania, we have continuously respected our engagements by delivering added value to the local market and to the surrounding countries that are managed from Bucharest. Our marketing department created a free-of-charge training program dedicated to local staff and to partners too. All courses are held at ZTE University in Shenzhen, China and in different European countries where ZTE has opened Research & Development cells belonging to our Institutes in China.

"Particularly talking about Romania and surrounding countries, you can find ZTE's investments being represented by fixed and mobile technologies and soon you will see a new impressive project representing a pioneering endeavour in the whole of Europe."
ZTE also decided to support Central and Eastern operators with managed services by investing in a Competence Centre in Timisoara. "We also focus our attention and technologies on Smart City 3.0 which collects data from more sources and expands governmental and other public service data to city-level detail," said Vintila. "Together with our regional team we can easily show that ZTE has incorporated innovation, technological convergence and the concept of Going Green into the product life cycle we deliver in Romania and surrounding countries in the forms of wireless and fixed products and services."
ZTE's full-year revenue rose to 13 billion Euro, bolstered by growth in the company′s Carrier Networks and Consumer businesses. ZTE has posted its net profit of 490 million Euro, 19.2 per cent higher than a year earlier. In the Government and Corporate Business, ZTE posted revenue of 1.2 billion Euro in 2016.
"Since the ZTE offices from my portfolio contributed to the global figures I consider that 2017 will be a successful year as long as we perform with an outstanding local staff who deliver high-tech products and services to the operators and other large or medium customers," concluded Vintila.

Huawei launches ten million Euro enterprise global service centre in Romania

Chinese telecom giant Huawei has launched a new Global Service Centre in Bucharest, following an investment of 10 million Euro.
The centre comprises four units: technical support, remote delivery, network operation, and marketing and channel support. It covers 2,000 square meters.
The new support unit in Romania will join a network of similar centres in China and Mexico. Huawei also has five regional Technical Assistance Centres (TAC), seven national TACs, 139 spare part centres around the world, and more than 1,100 city-level warehouses.
According to Huawei, The Remote Delivery unit allows engineers to guide customers and partners through planning, design, verification, and service-assurance activities, no matter where they are located. The Network Operation unit assists customers through IT outsourcing and Smart Network Operation Services (NOS). The Marketing and Channel Support unit provides channel consulting services and an exhibition centre for customers.

The Technical Support unit is responsible for supplying spare parts, dispatching service engineers, and providing centralized service request management
Huawei revealed its latest enterprise service strategy designed to support companies undergoing cloud transformation. Huawei is committed to becoming an industry cloud enabler and a strategic partner to customers across diverse industries by investing 500 million USD in the development of cloud-based professional services, a cloud platform and cloud ecosystem. This will provide customers with end-to-end cloud transformation service solutions enabling them to build, use, and manage their cloud platforms effectively.

Sun Maolu, President of Technical Service Department for Huawei Enterprise Business Group, said: "With the emergence of a Cloud-Only era, Huawei is adopting a long-term cloud transformation service strategy to support our enterprise customers in their journey to the cloud. Our services strategy centres on the concept of ′Grow with the Cloud′ and on becoming an industry cloud enabler.
"More specifically, Huawei′s enterprise services will focus on four key areas including cloud innovation, creating a digital platform, supporting smart operations and enabling businesses. To drive this strategy forward, Huawei will continue to increase its investment in the development of service solutions and Global Service Centres as well as tools, platforms and verification labs for professional services. In the next five years, we will also focus on research and development of industry clouds, increasing our annual investment by more than 50 per cent. To meet enterprise demand for ITC talent in the cloud era, Huawei will provide a new certification scheme to train ITC architects, ITC developers and industry-specific ITC experts. By 2021, it is estimated that more than 150,000 cloud and industry-specific ITC professionals will have been certified by Huawei."

End-to-end industry cloud transformation solutions

As enterprises embrace cloud transformation, they will face a new set of challenges across strategy, planning, requirement analysis, business integration, application system evaluation, technology selection, roadmap design, deployment, operations & maintenance (O&M) management, and information security.

Xu Jingbin, Director of IT Technical Service Department for Huawei Enterprise Business Group, commented: "With a track record of industry cloud solution delivery, Huawei works closely with our partners to develop end-to-end industry cloud transformation services that cover consulting, assessment, planning and design, migration, disaster recovery (DR), security, and O&M. As business continuity is critical during complex cloud migration, Huawei provides a sophisticated migration process with four stages and 17 steps, and professional migration tools developed in-house which have helped more than 1,000 customers migrate their businesses to the cloud smoothly and efficiently."
Huawei will invest more than USD 500 million in the next five years to develop all-scenario services and integrated verification capabilities for its enterprise services, enabling a trouble-free cloud transformation for industries. In China, Huawei has already established an industry planning and design verification lab, a disaster recovery and migration lab, a safe city verification centre, and financial services verification centres.

Leslie Rosenberg, IDC Research Director, said: "Huawei invests heavily in the development of Intellectual Property through the establishment of R&D centres to accelerate innovation, differentiation and delivery of its services. The company has skilled services personnel as well as a channel ecosystem around the globe for consistent consulting and integration engagements. According to a recent IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Network Consulting Services 2017 Vendor Assessment, Huawei is positioned as a ′Major Player′ for its global capabilities and R&D strength. Additionally, end users surveyed in the study cited Huawei for its ability to lower operational costs and improve security as well as its ability to deliver reliability, quality and adaptability to customer needs and requirements."
Huawei Enterprise Service has set up Global Service Centres in China, Romania, and Mexico, and 12 regional and local Technical Assistance Centres worldwide. These 15 centres provide 24/7 services to more than 170 countries, including technical support, remote network operation, remote delivery, and marketing and channel support. Huawei's cloud services have already served over 18,000 customers in the past year. To date, 197 of the Fortune Global 500 companies and 45 of the top 100 enterprises have chosen Huawei as their partner for digital transformation.