FRANKFURT, Germany — Engineering giant Siemens announced plans Tuesday to increase spending in research and development to close to 5 billion euros next year and to open a new research center in China.
“In 2016, Siemens will invest around 4.8 billion euros ($5.23 billion) in research and development, some 300 million euros ($326.60 million) more than last fiscal year,” Siemens said in a statement. R&D spending had therefore increased by about 20% since 2014, the statement said.
“In fiscal 2015, research intensity — defined as the ratio of R&D expenditures to revenue — was 5.9%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over the prior year.”
As part of a move to expand its R&D collaborations with top universities, Siemens said it would establish a new research center on the campus of Munich’s Technical University that would “focus on everything from IT security to autonomous systems.”
In addition, “Siemens will also establish a new innovation center in China. The more than 300 employees will conduct research in new digitalization solutions for both the Chinese and international markets.”
China is a key market for Siemens and the plans to build a new research center is a signal that the German giant is not being put off by the country’s economic slowdown.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2015
