Stmt re Operations in India

ABB Ltd
18 February 2002


ABB opens research and development center in India

First of two centers in Asia to focus on industrial information technology, or
Industrial IT.

Zurich, Switzerland, February 18,2002 - ABB today opened a research and 
development center in Bangalore to focus on software development and industrial
information technology, or Industrial IT. With Industrial IT, ABB is integrating
its entire power and automation technology offerings to enable utility or
industry customers to make their installations more productive.

'This new center for software development is part of our program to make our
products more intelligent and also central to our strategy for Asia as a longer-
term growth market,' said Jorgen Centerman, ABB president and CEO. 'It will
reinforce our commitment to increasing the number of products and services we
Industrial IT -enable for our customers.'

In 2001, ABB had revenues of US$2.7 billion in Asia, the same level as in 2000.
It had 11 percent of its employees working in the region. Industrial IT-enabling
ABB products and services is a rigorous process that needs facilitating by
dedicated scientists, ABB said. This includes developing software and certifying
the company's products and services for bundling together as an intelligent
package for customers.

For example, a pulp and paper customer can use Industrial IT to link together
all the products (motors, valves, sensors, actuators, etc.) in its supply chain
with the business processes (enterprise resource planning systems, etc.) used to
run the plant. This creates greater quality, efficiency and production, ABB
said. In early February, the company announced that it had enabled more than
3,000 of its products.

Markus Bayegan, ABB's chief technology officer, opening the center in Bangalore,
said: 'With this new R&D facility, we can benefit from India's strong
information technology and software development skills.'

The new ABB center, a fully-owned subsidiary located in the International
Technology Park (ITPL) in Bangalore, will initially bring together 30-50
industrial software programmers and engineers.

ABB has 3,800 employees working in India, working across the entire spectrum of
products, projects and service solutions.  The ABB Group spends some seven
percent of its revenue on technology innovation - US$654 million a year on
research and development and US$916 million a year on order-related
developments. ABB has four globally networked labs operating in the U.S., Europe
and Asia. In total, the ABB Group employs approximately 6,000 scientists.

ABB officials said another research and development center will open in China in
mid-2002.

ABB (www.abb.com) is a global leader in power and automation technologies that
enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering
environmental impact. ABB has 155,000 employees in more than 100 countries.

For more information please contact:

 
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