Due to "valuing the world's number one Chinese market", the dual headquarters have landed in Shanghai and continued to expand investment for ten years
In 1876, Koch, a German bacteriologist, successfully isolated the bacteria that caused anthrax, and later discovered the bacteria of pestis, malaria, relapsing fever, trypanosomiasis and other diseases, for which Koch won the Nobel Prize. He wrote in a letter to Zeiss in Germany, "A large part of my success should be attributed to your excellent microscope."
That was the first microscope in human history, and its release almost sparked a revolution in precision optical machinery. Today, Zeiss continues to innovate in fields such as intelligent manufacturing, healthcare, and consumer optics. That revolution is not over, but over the past decade, it has been closely intertwined with China's booming market.
In 2013, China's first pilot free trade zone was established in Shanghai. In the same year, Zeiss China upgraded from a former trading company to a management headquarters in the China region, located within the pilot free trade zone.
Xie Lei, Chief Operating Officer of Zeiss China, told reporters that in fact, Zeiss had just started its business in China at that time, and China was only the fourth largest market for Zeiss in the world. Based on the trade facilitation policy of the pilot free trade zone, Zeiss quickly entered a stage of rapid development.
"In 2013, the Free Trade Zone just implemented paperless measures for export tax refunds, and Zeiss China became one of the first pilot enterprises. The entire process of export tax refunds was paperless, and the tax refund cycle was reduced from the usual 20 working days to 5 working days. In addition, the customs declaration and inspection process has also been significantly improved. Previously, batch customs declaration required waiting for at least a week to pick up the goods. Now, with centralized customs declaration for batch shipments, the goods can be picked up on the same day. Zeiss has a sales revenue of several billion yuan per year, and the simplified administrative process has saved us considerable costs and time." Xie Lei said.
"Bonded display" was an innovative policy tailored for a group of enterprises in the pilot free trade zone, which was later promoted to be implemented throughout the region. The birth of this policy has changed the sales method of high-end instruments in China for Zeiss. "Previously, when selling a high-end device worth millions, we had to let customers fly overseas to see and experience it. Now, we can bring the device to China for demonstration without paying taxes. We can even bring the device to some domestic exhibitions under bonded conditions, greatly reducing operating costs." Xie Lei explained.
Over the past 10 years, Zeiss China has maintained a compound annual growth rate of over 20%. By 2021, China will also surpass the United States and Germany for the first time, becoming the world's largest market for Zeiss. At the same time, Shanghai also plays a more important role in the global industrial layout of Zeiss.
Xie Lei said that since Zeiss first laid out research and development functions in the pilot free trade zone in 2013, a series of product research and development have gradually been placed in China, including research grade microscopes, surgical microscopes, and so on. In recent years, Zeiss has placed its headquarters for the global new energy business sector in China and established two new investment companies in the pilot free trade zone in 2022, completing the layout of regional headquarters and dual investment companies.
Especially in 2020, after the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone launched the "Global Operator Plan", Zeiss China became one of the first GOP cultivation enterprises, relying on the white list system of recommended enterprises for goods transfer and trading, gradually transferring the transfer business originally placed in Hong Kong to the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. From around 2017, Zeiss generated only RMB 20 million in offshore trade transactions in Shanghai throughout the year, to over RMB 600 million last year, Zeiss successfully achieved a centralized allocation of functional elements such as headquarters, research and development, and finance in the Greater China region based in Shanghai.
This summer, New Development Company, a subsidiary of Waigaoqiao Group, officially signed a lease agreement with Zeiss China, indicating that Zeiss will further expand its investment in the free trade zone. "Despite the continuous slowdown in global economic growth, Zeiss still has a positive outlook on the Chinese market and economy. On the one hand, the objective demand for high-quality development of domestic industries is highly consistent with the product types provided by Zeiss in the high-end manufacturing field. In the past few years, the growth rate of each series of our products has been maintained at over 20%. On the other hand, China's supply chain strength is also steadily improving. If we had some difficulty in achieving local industrialization in China in the past, today we can find partners in the Chinese market that fully meet Zeiss' technical requirements. We have no reason to leave China or Shanghai." Xie Lei said.
