Industrial conglomerate Honeywell opened its emerging market headquarters and innovation center in Wuhan last May despite the pandemic, demonstrating its confidence in the strong potential of the Chinese market and the country's ability to provide more high-tech talents. 

Robust economic growth and an improved business environment have made China a popular investment location for multinational companies like Honeywell.

Honeywell, an American technology company in China since 1972, has become a local company with its strategy of "East for East."

Shane Tedjarati, president of Global High Growth Regions, has witnessed China's development over the past four decades with his own eyes.

CGTN's Michael Wang speaks with him on what opportunities Honeywell will garner as China uses innovation and technology to boost urbanization and address climate change.

The following are excerpts from the interview, which have been edited for clarity and brevity.

CGTN: How is the talent pipeline for Honeywell China in terms of the quality and supply of engineers? 

Tedjarati: The talent has significantly changed over the past 10 years. We used to hire for potential and train a lot of people maybe 15 years ago. And then make it through the training and all that continue to grow on the company. Today, China is producing a lot more talents at all levels, which was something very rare 15, or even 10 years ago. Today, you really have a good set of well-trained talents in engineering, marketing, supply chain, product offering, and overall leadership in program management. These are the reasons why we continue to believe that China will be able to continue to fuel growth.

We're an engine of nearly 10,000 people, and continue to grow and raise talent. We're looking both internally as well as externally. What you have to be a company that drives high technology to solve real problems and gives people not just the tools, but also the authority, the latitude, the room to make an impact. If you do that, then you can attract good talent. If you don't do that, there's so much competition for those talents across China. 

CGTN: What are the mega-trends you see in China when it comes to industry? 

Tedjarati: There are several mega-trends that are particularly important. One is this continuous emergence and drive towards urbanization. Urbanization and the rise of the standard of living in China is the big mega mega-trend.

The elimination of poverty that the nation is completely committed to, we've seen that play out really well in the past 30 years. And I think it has a lot of way moving forward. The rise of the standard of living requires solving problems of low arable land and high-density population and all that with great technology. And those technologies in safety, security, energy efficiency, e-commerce, supply chain, warehousing, green buildings, healthy buildings, healthy hospitals, schools. And then underlying enabling technologies are artificial intelligence and the intersection of software and hardware

CGTN: What about sustainability? China has huge ambitions in terms of going green. And Honeywell said it can change the cost equation when it comes to renewable energy. When you speak to Chinese policymakers, are they receptive? Do they want to adapt to this kind of change as soon as possible? 

Tedjarati: Absolutely, a lot more than they were just a few years ago. Because I think the emphasis of the current leadership of China is on better quality of life, rising of the standard of living and adopting technologies, such as AI and digital technology to bring more efficiency and a definite commitment to reducing CO2 and to reducing carbon and becoming more of a carbon-neutral economy. So they are really interested in what we have to bring to the table.