China is developing at a breathtaking speed. Many Chinese residents experience increasing wealth and great improvements of life quality as the country's economy is growing rapidly.

However, the benefits from the fast development are currently imbalanced between urban and rural areas: Urban residents enjoy most of the improvements whereas their rural country-fellows lag far behind with only little gains. Siemens, the global technology and electrical engineering company, identified this disparity as a focus on where to take responsibility for a future Chinese balanced society. Siemens commits itself to be a reliable partner for China in order to create mutual trust.

In order to prevent a further increase of the social disparity, the Chinese Government declared rural development to be a primary objective in the 11th Five-Year Plan. Beside the modernization of agriculture and improvement of rural education, the provision of better healthcare is among the top priorities in the national program “Building a New Socialist Countryside”. The goals set in the Five-Year-Plan and Siemens' focus in corporate responsibility match perfectly.

Siemens, therefore announced at the annual Clinton Global Initiative Summit (CGI) in New York in early October this year that it would commit $10 million in medical diagnostic equipment, water treatment equipment, and financial support to rural communities in China. The company is working closely with the Chinese Ministry of Health to facilitate the delivery of CT scanners, X-ray equipment and ultrasound machines, as well as vital water purification systems, to medical clinics throughout a rural community in China.

"In China, healthcare industry has the corporate social responsibility to be innovative in two directions - on the one hand to develop cutting-edge technology that brings improvement of quality and reduction of cost in the healthcare system of the developed areas and on the other hand to bring healthcare services to more patients in the more remote area through cost-optimized solutions", explained Dr. Bernd Ohnesorge, the newly appointed president of the Siemens Medical Solutions group in China.

“As one of the world's largest infrastructure companies, Siemens recognized that we could make a significant – and immediate - difference by addressing the rapid proliferation of respiratory disease currently plaguing many of the mining towns throughout China”, said Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO of Siemens AG. Soon, people will have access to diagnostic equipment that will detect diseases earlier and clean water technologies that can decrease the spread of life-threatening human contaminants.

The five-year commitment of medical diagnostic technologies and water purification systems will begin in early 2007 with the delivery and installation of equipment into clinics. Siemens will oversee the equipment set-up and train local healthcare providers to maintain and service machines.

Finally, the Company will provide all necessary training to ensure that this new high-technology equipment will be properly managed and maintained. Siemens will measure pre- and post-baseline health outcomes. Respiratory disease is an outgrowth of extensive coal mining in the region. The lack of purified water systems and sanitized waste water treatment compounds the infectious disease rates among patients and medical staff. This is to illustrate how Siemens can help the communities in a direct and efficient way.
Siemens also will supply specialized, reverse osmosis water purification equipment used to make high purity water from potable tap water for laboratory and dialysis applications in the clinics. Under the guideline of sustainability, Siemens will then measure pre- and post-baseline health outcomes.

		Editor's Note: the author is Director, Media & Public Relations of Siemens China Corporate Communications By Bernd Eitel