GE unit to invest $5 billion outside US (including India) by 2010

Our Corporate Bureau
12 March 2008

Singapore: GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE  has announced that it plans to invest $5 billion, almost a quarter of its total plan, outside the United States, to grow and help meet soaring energy demand by the end of 2010.

The unit has opened offices in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and expanded in India. ''Building on our international experience dating back to the mid 1990s, we are rapidly broadening our global footprint to propel GE's growth and help meet the world's deepening infrastructure needs, particularly in emerging markets,'' said Alex Urquhart, President and CEO of GE Energy Financial Services.

The increase of GE Energy Financial Services' new investments outside the United States to nearly a quarter of its total plan is a significant boost from its traditional level of 10 per cent.

Those investments are now spread across 35 developed and emerging countries. This strategy reinforces GE's company-wide plan to boost international revenues to take advantage of rapidly growing non-US economies, particularly in infrastructure areas such as energy.

In a statement, GE Energy Financial Services said that world primary energy demand is projected to grow by 55 per cent between 2005 and 2030, to 17.7 billion metric tons of oil equivalent, as estimated by the International Energy Administration.

GE reported that international revenues topped 50 per cent for the first time in 2007, up from an historic average of 40 per cent. Adding to its traditional outreach to developed markets in Europe, Canada and Australia, GE Energy Financial Services is focusing on emerging markets such as India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Turkey and the Middle East.