Roche Aims to Expand Sales in Chinese Market

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 07, 2003

Roche Aims to Expand Sales in Chinese Market

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Roche, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, has announced that it aims to raise the ratio of its Chinese sales as a percentage of its global sales from the current one percent to between three percent and five percent in five years.

Although Chinese sales account for 25 percent of its Asian sales, (excluding Japan), last year's Chinese sales, totaling 319 million US dollars, accounted for only one percent of Roche's global sales, and Chinese sales are expected to rise as Chinese spend more money on health, according to Zhou Pingshan, the newly-appointed general manager of Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Since 1994, Roche has set up three enterprises with its own capital and three joint ventures, a total investment of 236 million US dollars.

"In the nine years since entering the Chinese market, Roche has maintained remarkable growth, and annual sales have grown at double-digit rates for several consecutive years," Zhou said.

Zhou denied media reports about Swiss Novartis' possible acquisition of Roche, saying that the Roche family, which holds 50.1 percent of the company's voting shares, will not agree to sell that portion of voting shares before 2009.

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