On August 22, Hao Ruiqiang, the president and CEO of Siemens China spoke out on the alleged bribery scandal in Shanghai. He said, "Last year we dismissed 20 employees from Siemens China because they were found to be involved in some practices that the company cannot tolerate." He emphasized, "For bribery and other corruption, we have zero tolerance."
This was also a response to the new CEO of Siemens AG Peter Loescher's previous statement against any unlawful practices. Mr. Loescher is now on his first visit to China, which will last two days.
A German business magazine on August 20 reported that Siemens headquarters' bribery scandal had affected its Chinese branch and about half of Siemens China's businesses were connected with bribery. Hao argued that the German magazine's report was not in good form, given Siemens China is still under investigation and audit.
Meanwhile, Siemens AG is also being investigated. The exposed business bribery scandal has damaged Siemens' reputation and put the company in serious trouble. Peter Loescher, after taking over the CEO role, said that his top priority would be to make Siemens's operations lawful and stressed that he would focus on dealing with the matters of bribery.
Mr. Loescher promised that his company would offer full cooperation on the bribery investigations. He also said that it is his company's policy to dismiss anyone who breaks laws or regulations and encouraged all the managers to carry out the policy.
To deal with illegal business practices, Siemens will appoint supervisors to monitor the procedures of the company's internal operations. It will regularly train employees on laws and regulations and hire independent and experienced law firms from outside to strengthen management.
(China.org.cn by Pang Li August 23, 2007)
