Hello, my name is Allan Gabor. I’m the president of Merck China and managing director of performance materials here in Shanghai.

I worked in China 20 years. China is a big country that has so much to offer to the world.

I’m really looking forward to this China International Import Expo. Welcome to Shanghai.

Our company is actually over 350 years old, having started in Darmstadt, Germany. So we’ve got quite a history and we are very proud of that history, being one of the oldest pharmaceutical and chemical companies in the world.

We’ve been here about 85 years now. Our history in China starts in Shanghai, which we are very proud of. Actually, at the Peace Hotel, where we opened up an office, and that’s where we started our early history here in Shanghai.

We are not only here because China is one of the largest markets for health care, China is also fast becoming the largest market for displaying materials.

But it’s also from a labor-intensive to an innovation-based society. And this is nearly where life science business can play a very important role.

Innovation center is one of our newest investments in China. We brought our CRISPR technology to Tongji University here in Shanghai because we know there. Bringing that to them is a smart thing to do.

I’ve actually experienced many of those changes personally, having lived here for almost 20 years.

I live in the city's former French Concession area and I very much like the living atmosphere where I would call the combination of the very vibrant city life and the thing, the simplicity of the neighborhood.

When I think of the healthcare environment, there’s been many, many changes relating to the opening up here in China. Clearly, the Chinese population sees the need for access to the right kinds of medicine.

We are making the right kinds of medicines for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and thyroid disease at China-friendly prices. Our thyroid medicines go for approximately 3 RMB a day that helps make them very available for the average Chinese population.

A platform like CIIE is a chance for China to show what they can do in terms of bringing partners together.

To be truly successful in today’s business world, I don’t think anybody can do it alone. It gives us the chance to showcase our great products that we’ve brought to China and to demonstrate the degree of localization that we have here in China, building a long-standing partnership with local suppliers.

We expect that we are going to be meeting many new Chinese partners here during the time of the expo.