Q&A: What the year has in store

Vicki L. Dawkins, president of Emerson Asia-Pacific.

A1 While growth has slowed in China, the economy is still growing at 6.7 percent which is much faster than many developed Western economies. We believe that the Chinese government will continue to achieve its goals.

We have been in China for close to 35 years and China is an important market for Emerson. Like every other nation, the economy goes up and down, but we're very positive about the Chinese economy and our prospects in China leading into 2017.

A2 Our areas of focus for 2017 align closely with the 13th Five-Year Plan and include:

・Energy conservation and emission reduction for manufacturing and power generation facilities to address climate change,

・Sustainable food waste management and energy efficient heating and cooling technologies for residential and commercial buildings,

・Industrial internet of things solutions to improve efficiency and safety in manufacturing.

Some examples include Emerson's Plant web digital ecosystem for manufacturing enterprises, to optimize their process controls and safety network, helping them achieve top performance, and Emerson's heat pump solution for homes, which removes the need for environmentally harmful coal fires and replaces them with more efficient electrical heating.

A3 In 2017, we're expecting sales growth for our Commercial & Residential Solutions business in China, and recent orders trends for our Automation Solutions business have stabilized. So we are cautiously optimistic about our China business and expect to see low single-digit growth in 2017.

A4 The impact to Emerson from currency fluctuations is minimal as compared to more export-driven companies due to our regionalization strategy. Globally, more than 80 percent of our sales transactions are supported by local manufacturing and a local supply chain. In other words, most of what we sell in China is made in China which helps to mitigate the negative impact of currency fluctuations.

A5 Currently, we have 15 engineering and development centers and 17 manufacturing facilities throughout China. We will continue to invest and fine tune our presence in China to maintain high quality service to our customers. For example, we are currently investing $27 million in Beijing to relocate our instrument manufacturing plant from Daxing to Dongcheng district.