This morning TongFang Co. Ltd. held an inauguration ceremony at the Raffles City Convention Centre in Singapore for its Asia-Pacific R&D Center. This is TongFang’s first overseas Professional R&D Center. President of TongFang Company, Professor Lu Zhicheng and Vice-President Dr Li Jisheng were present and both cut the ribbons during the ceremony. Also present at the ceremony was special guest, Mr Ko Kheng Hwa, Managing Director of the Singapore Economic Development Board. TongFang’s important strategic overseas partners also sent representatives to attend the ceremony.

As early as the end of last year, at the Global Entrepolis Forum, President Lu Zhicheng announced to the media his plan of establishing an Asia-Pacific Research and Development Center in Singapore. Since Singapore and Mainland China have close geographical, linguistic and cultural ties, and since Singapore has the advantage of possessing very international human resources, TongFang has long intended to establish an R&D Center in Singapore. Worth noting is that the establishment of TongFang’s Asia-Pacific R&D center has received strong support from the Singapore Economic Development Board. “We welcome Tongfang’s Asia Pacific R&D Center in Singapore, the largest Chinese R&D operations here.  This centre testifies to Singapore’s attractiveness in three aspects: i) a compelling R&D hub, ii) excellent base for Chinese companies to internationalise; and iii) conducive platform to forge international partnerships,” said Mr Ko Kheng Hwa, Managing Director, Singapore Economic Development Board.

The top levels of TongFang Co Ltd give a lot of importance to the establishment of the Asia-Pacific R&D Center, and have high expectations for the center: “The Asia-Pacific R&D Center will be an important source of competitiveness for TongFang in the next ten years,” said President Lu Zhi Cheng in his speech. It is believed that the establishment of the Asia-Pacific R&D Center has a double significance:

Firstly, the establishment of the Asia-Pacific R&D Center is an important step in TongFang’s internationalisation strategy. So far, 90% of TongFang’s sales income and profits come from Mainland China, while TongFang’s internationalisation strategy requires it to become a global market player, starting from the internationalisation of its professional staff, and then gradually the internationalisation of its technology and capital. The establishment of the Asia-Pacific R&D Center is the start of TongFang’s internationalisation drive.

Secondly, the Asia-Pacific R&D Center is an important part of TongFang’s technological innovation strategy. As a nationally listed high-tech company and considering its origins in Tsinghua University, TongFang intends to establish its core competitive edge in the field of technology. Therefore, ever since the company was established, it has devoted itself to technological innovation. The establishment of the Asia-Pacific R&D Center has strengthened the company’s technological and R&D capacity and is objectively becoming an important guarantee in its technological innovation strategy.

TongFang’s R&D Center will invest millions of dollars into five areas of research, including digital cities, software, energy and environment, water treatment and accredited chip technology. It is estimated that TongFang will employ several dozen internationalised R&D engineers in the process. These are precisely the areas in which Tongfang has received wide recognition for in the market, and in which Tongfang is most competitive. The opening of the R&D Center has further strengthened TongFang’s technological competitive advantage in these fields.

Introduction to TongFang Company Limited:

TongFang Co. Ltd is a high-tech company controlled by Tsinghua Holdings Co. Ltd. It was established in June 1997 and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a total of 575 million stocks. TongFang Company is based on its own independent core technology and has combined capital operations capability, establishing itself in four major industries: information technology, energy and environment, applied nuclear electronics technology and biomedicine.

In the field of information, Tsinghua TongFang devotes itself to technological innovation in applied information systems, computer systems and digital television systems and product development, so as to provide overall solutions and complete equipment for digital cities, digital education, digital media and other industries. At present, Tsinghua TongFang is already a technological leader in the areas of digital cities, computers and digital education resources, and has a good market share in China.

In the field of energy and environment, Tsinghua Tongfang undertakes energy use and environmental pollution control projects and artificial environment projects, focusing on the areas of artificial environments, energy and environment, building and environment, and water environments, more specifically, smoke desulphurisation, waste incineration, water treatment, air conditioning technologies. The company has a clear competitive advantage in the area of large and medium sized air conditioning equipment.

In the field of applied nuclear electronics technology, the company has a range of international standard core products, including electronic accelerators, radiation imaging, automatic control and digital image processing technology.

In the area of biomedicine and fine chemicals, the company produces new patent medicine, pharmaceutical intermediates, pharmaceutical raw materials and other products, and is fast emerging as a high-tech biomedicine company.

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