by Martina Fuchs
GENEVA, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) -- The CEO of Arcelik, one of the world's biggest home appliance makers, told Xinhua recently that China is a bright spot for business amid global recession fears and an increasingly gloomy market outlook.
Speaking of the present headwinds against the world economy, Hakan Bulgurlu said, "we will have to go through a lot of pain before it gets better."
China, however, is "a little bit of a different picture," he said in a video interview with Xinhua.
Established in 1955, Arcelik is a Turkish multinational household appliances manufacturer headquartered in Istanbul. With 45,000 employees, its global operations include subsidiaries in 53 countries, 30 production facilities in nine countries.
Arcelik's domestic sales in China have grown by roughly 80 percent in 2022.
"I find China one of the more promising places to be in the future. It has always been the factory of the world, and I think it will continue to be the factory of the world," said Bulgurlu.
"The world economy has significantly slowed down, and we are facing a recession on many fronts," said the Turkish businessman, who had lived in Hong Kong for 13 years.
Calling himself "a big fan" of China and Asia, Bulgurlu said he is optimistic about the business performance in the future Chinese market. "I think demand for appliances continues. We want to continue investing in China to actually bring our brands in."
The international businessman also shared his view on environment protection as he is going to attend the upcoming 27th session of the Conference of Parties (COP27) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Summit scheduled for Nov. 6-18 in Egypt.
Recalling his reaching of the summit of Mt. Qomolangma in 2019, he said that experience taught him a lot about leadership in the fight against global warming and the responsibilities companies and business leaders share to act on climate change.
According to Bulgurlu, four product groups, namely heating and cooling, refrigeration, lighting and electric motors, consume about 40 percent of all power. Many current technologies have made these production much more efficient.
"We need global regulations to make us use the best available technologies in all of these product groups to reduce power consumption," he said.
Regarding the upcoming COP27 meeting, he said "I hope to make some progress and talk not only with policymakers but other CEOs as well."
"I actually admire China in the sense that when China makes a decision, it follows through very, very fast," Bulgurlu said.
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