Remi Charachon Attends the 20th Anniversary of Shanghai Caohejing Hi-Tech Park

A grand ceremony was held in the Shanghai Centre on the afternoon of July 8th, 2008 by Shanghai Caohejing Hi-Tech Park to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of its approval as the State-level Economic and Technological Development Zone. Officials of the Shanghai municipal government and representatives of the enterprises located in the park were all present. Mr. Remi Charachon, President & CEO of Air Liquide China, was invited to deliver a speech as representative of multi-national companies. 

Mr. Charachon said in his speech, "Shanghai Caohejing Hi-tech Park, in its two decades of development, has promoted high and new technologies and brought about an excellent environment for investment, thus attracting over 1200 hi-tech companies and R&D institutions including more than 500 foreign enterprises to settle down here in the Park. As Air Liquide came back to China early nineties, it was natural that we chose Caohejing Hi-Tech Park as the location for our Chinese headquarters. In 1991, we set up our first subsidiary and plant in Caohejing – Air Liquide Shanghai – to supply Philips Semiconductor. Now Air Liquide Shanghai produces and sells high quality industrial gases to more than 300 customers of various industries in the Greater Shanghai Area. Taking the Park as its starting point and also as its base, Air Liquide China currently has 31 plants, either in operation, or under construction, and has a plan to invest more than 3 billion RMB per year in China." At the end of his speech, Mr. Charachon, on behalf of Air Liquide China, expressed his sincere thanks to all the leaders of the Shanghai Municipality and Caohejing Hi-Tech Park for their continued support to Air Liquide.

Shanghai Caohejing Hi-Tech Park, located in the south-east of Shanghai, is a state-level economic and technological development zone, high-tech industrial development zone and export processing zone. In 2007, the combined sales revenue of the enterprises invested in the Caohejing Park totaled 140.5 billion yuan, with their industrial output value of 101.4 billion yuan. Caohejing Hi-Tech Park currently tops the list of all development zones in China in terms of productivity per unit area.