Dr Stenkamp had successful talks with Chinese business leaders and administration officials

The TÜV NORD GROUP is maintaining contact with top Chinese companies with the aim of building up cooperative relationships in alignment with the Group’s strategic goals: digitalisation, internationalisation and innovation. The Chairman of the Board of Management of the TÜV NORD GROUP, Dr Dirk Stenkamp, has just returned from a visit to China with some promising developments resulting from talks that he held with a number of business leaders.

Dr Dirk Stenkamp’s journey took him first of all to the Zhejiang Provincial Administration of Quality and Technology Supervision where he held talks with its director Yingzhong Gao and deputy director Zhenhua Chen. The economy of the Zhejiang province is one of the biggest and richest in China. The provincial administration has developed a programme to boost entrepreneurship and SME enterprises and the manufacturing of products for China and overseas: the region is currently promoting the “Made in Zhejiang” brand. Dr Dirk Stenkamp explained that there is great demand in international markets for high quality products that are independently tested. Which is where the TÜV NORD GROUP comes in as an internationally recognised certification institution with an office in Hangzhou, the provincial capital.

A big step forward has already been taken with Jumore, one of the major cross-border e-commerce platforms for full-line commodities such as mining, metals, energy, chemicals, agriculture, machinery, industrial products and consumer goods etc. Dr Stenkamp met Jumore’s president Hongxiang Lu to follow up on the talks the two held late last year. Jumore is ready to set up logistics distribution centres in different countries so that it may quickly ship goods all around the world. This is why Jumore is an active partner in the global promotion of the Zhejiang province. Hongxiang Lu predicted that the “one belt one road” national strategy would lead to greater demand for inspection and certification services. He once again expressed his hope that TÜV NORD could become the primary service partner to Jumore. This May, Jumore agreed on terms with TÜV NORD Greater China for the establishment of a specialised web page on the Jumore website to advertise its services. Various TÜV NORD services, such as the certification of management systems, renewable energy, railway services, industrial services and training, can be purchased directly from it. “We’ve successfully established our services in Jumore’s digital value-added chain,” said Dr Dirk Stenkamp.

Alongside the Jumore milestone, a further Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with Suzhou Neway Valve Co. Ltd, an internationally well-known valve manufacturer with a strong commitment to research into and development of industrial valves. This MOU will pave the way to a comprehensive and in-depth collaboration in areas including the functional safety of valves, materials inspection and certification, energy saving, emission reduction and UN CDM (Clean Development Mechanism); with its highly-recognised expertise, the TÜV NORD GROUP is well placed to support Neway in these areas, which may help the company position its products as having been tested by a highly respected international certification body.

Focusing again on digitalisation, Dr Dirk Stenkamp gave a lecture at the Shanghai Maritime University on the subject of the “Digital Transformation — IT Readiness in the Connected World”. This was his fifth lecture at SMU as an honorary professor aimed at showcasing how IT technology influences our daily lives and why everybody needs to be aware of the critical importance of safety and security – both of which are highlighted in the TÜV NORD Security4Safety concept.