GE Chief’s Remarks Show Growing Irritation With China
General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said it is getting harder for foreign companies to do business in China, and that the Obama administration hasn’t done as much as its predecessors to develop ties to the business community, people who heard his comments said Thursday.
His remarks, made Wednesday night at a private dinner in Rome for Italian business leaders, GE executives and others, echoed concerns Mr. Immelt has expressed before about barriers to U.S. exports and links between business and government.
But his words appeared to show a growing irritation with China, which Mr. Immelt said is increasingly developing its own technology that competes with U.S. exports, according to a person who heard him speak. “Immelt expressed anger at China, because it’s trying to suck technology away,” this person said.
GE said Mr. Immelt was in transit, and not available for comment.
The company, however, said its approach to China hasn’t changed. “There is no change to our strategy for or in China, which as Jeff has said many times is an important and attractive market for GE,” said Anne Eisele, a spokeswoman for the Fairfield, Conn.-based conglomerate.
GE, a sponsor of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, has pinned much of its hopes for growth on Chinese markets. GE has 13,000 employees in China and has cut deals there to share technology in the areas of aviation, reducing pollution from coal, and rail locomotives.
China Real Time.
Around the time GE opened a new technology center in Shanghai in August of 2008, Mr. Immelt said GE expected to double its business in China to $10 billion by 2010. But the company appears behind schedule in reaching that target, with China revenue of about $5.3 billion in 2009, up from $4.7 billion in 2008.
Shifting to relations with governments, Mr. Immelt said Wednesday night that the Obama administration has been distracted by the economic crisis and its legislative priorities from developing the ties with business seen under the Bush and Clinton administrations.
The White House declined to comment.
Mr. Immelt enjoyed a warm relationship with President Barack Obama after the 2008 election, and was named to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, a bipartisan panel of industrial, finance and union leaders. Mr. Immelt was a leading corporate supporter of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill, praising it in op-ed pieces and speeches.
In recent months, though, Mr. Immelt has said the administration needs to do more to help U.S. manufacturers sell their goods in foreign markets. Speaking in May at the 92nd Street Y in New York, he said he felt outgunned in terms of political support when bidding against French and South Korean companies for a nuclear-reactor contract in Dubai. That $20 billion contract was ultimately won by a Korean consortium
Mr. Immelt’s remarks from the Rome gathering were reported earlier by the Financial Times.
One attendee said the chief executive “used the word ‘concern’ a lot,” indicating challenges as companies try to put the recession behind them. “His speech was gloomy,” this person said. “He seemed worried about business conditions across the board. And at the same time, he was using those observations to highlight that GE was doing well in spite of the difficulties.”
Mr. Immelt said GE’s second-quarter results won’t be bad. The company reported in April that its first-quarter profit fell 31% from a year earlier to $1.95 billion on revenue of $36.6 billion. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect GE to report $38.7 billion in revenue for the second quarter.
By JENNIFER CLARK And PAUL GLADER