COMPANIES ABB is in a position most western companies would envy. The Swiss-Swedish electrical engineering group gained 55 per cent of new orders in the third quarter from emerging markets, a figure most companies can only dream about.
The reason is simple: growth in emerging markets is and has been much stronger. ABB’s average annual growth in India over the past five years is 39 per cent and it is 21 per cent in China. “The whole market trend is changing. It is clear that the demand for investments is much higher in emerging markets and that has been accentuated by the recession,” says Michel Demaré, ABB’s chief financial officer.
