ABB concerned about aged people in Shanghai

Shanghai, October 30, 2007 – ABB, the leading power and automation technology group launched a senior citizens caring project in Shanghai. The project, which will last three years, aims at helping non-profit senior citizens' houses in Shanghai suburbs to improve facilities of the aged people while calls on public awareness of the challenges brought by the aging population in Shanghai.

Fred Kindle, CEO of ABB Group made a visit today to "Enguang Homes for the Elderly" in Minhang District, Shanghai. He just attended the Shanghai Mayor's International Business Leaders Advisory Council meeting and to the ABB-China centennial celebration event in Shanghai.

"Chinese people have a tradition of respecting the elderly. Being a local corporate citizen, ABB would like to join in the efforts to help the aged in Shanghai, which faces the highest percentage of aging population in the country," Kindle said.

According to statistics released by the Chinese government in late 2006, China has the world's largest aged population. There are nearly 144 million people over 60 years old by the end of 2005, accounting for almost 11% of the total. The number is increasing at the annual speed of more than 3%. In Shanghai, the proportion of aged population hit a historical high of 20% by May this year, that is, one out of 5 Shanghai people is over the age of 60.

Different from other countries, China becomes an ageing society when its GDP per capita has just reaching US$1,000, while the GDP per capita of many western countries has reached US$ 5,000-10,000 when they encountered such issue.

"Our employees in ABB's five local companies in Shanghai warmly responded to the idea of helping the senior citizen houses. They participated in the donation actively as believe 'care for the old, care for the future of you and me'. Our local company managers also contributed in addition. I feel proud of them. I believe such actions can support directly the construction of a harmonious society"said Kindle.

The project, jointly launched by ABB and Shanghai Charity Foundation, is scheduled to last three years. The first group of beneficiaries are the five non-profit senior citizens' houses, namely, "Enguang", "Jiangchuan", "Jinfeng", "Chenhang" and "Nanmatou" in Minhang and Pudong districts. The first donation of RMB300, 000 pursed by ABB and its employees will be used to improve the basic living facilities, including illumination improvement, floor restoration, bathroom repair, buying beds, rice steaming chests, conditioned dining car, urgency callers and etc. More than one thousand old people will benefit from it.

ABB China Chairman and President Brice Koch added that ABB's employees and companies in other cities of China are also implementing different types of social responsibility projects of either protecting environment, supporting education or charity and disaster relief. So far ABB has contributed about RMB4 million to support university students from poor families, and a project called "Protect Beijing" to combat desertification in Inner Mongolia is being supported by ABB employees in Beijing.

Founded in 1994, Shanghai Charity Foundation is a non-government, non-profit charity organization aiming at offering help in various forms to people in need such as the elders, children, students and persons with disabilities with donations from every part of society both home and abroad.

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in about 100 countries and employs more than 110,000 people. ABB has a full range of business activities in China, including R&D, manufacturing, sales and service, with 12,000 employees, 25 joint ventures and wholly owned companies, and an extensive sales and service network across 38 cities. To know more about ABB, visit www.abb.com.cn.