Eastman Kodak Company is the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of imaging products and services.

Headquartered in Rochester, New York, Kodak is a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange, with business operations in over 150 countries and territories and nearly 80,000 employees.

Since its foundation in 1880, Kodak has maintained its leadership position in the global imaging industry with diversified businesses encompassing all aspects of silver halide and digital imaging technologies. At present, Kodak is primarily engaged in the development, manufacture and distribution of traditional and digital imaging products, services and solutions, serving consumers, professional photographers, health care providers, entertainment industry and other commercial customers. The company is organized into four major businesses: Photography, providing consumers, professionals and cinematographers with digital and traditional products and services; Commercial Imaging, offering image capture, output and storage products and services to businesses and government; Components, delivering flat-panel displays, optics and sensors to original equipment manufacturers; and Health, supplying the healthcare industry with traditional and digital image capture and output products and services. Kodak harnesses its technology, market reach and a host of industry partnerships to provide innovative products and services for customers who need the information-rich content that images contain.

The company, with sales in 2001 of $13.2 billion, ranks 383 in the Fortune 500 list.

Investment in China

Kodak has had a long history in China, which has already become the world's second largest market, next only to the United States, for Kodak roll film. It is forecast that China will become Kodak's largest market within years.

Kodak opened its first office in Shanghai as early as 1927. In 1998, Kodak invested $1.2 billion to implement its comprehensive cooperation with China's major sensitizing enterprises, aiming to upgrade the Chinese sensitizing industry and assisting in industrial restructuring and the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOE). This is Kodak's largest overseas investment within the past 30 years. Under this plan of comprehensive cooperation, out of the seven domestic sensitizing enterprises, three entered into joint venture cooperation with Kodak, another three were given economic compensation by Kodak, and one (Lucky Film) did not participate in the cooperation. In order to protect Kodak's investment in China, the Chinese government promised that domestic sensitizing enterprises shall not enter into joint venture cooperation with other foreign companies during the first three years of the construction period of the ventures.

The Kodak Project was originally intended to supply the domestic imaging market. But the Asian Financial Crisis broke out when the project was still under construction. In view of the market situation, the leadership of Kodak resolutely decided to increase the investment and accelerate the construction. When the products made in China reached Kodak's worldwide standard, they were first exported to South East Asian and Australian markets. Since Kodak applies a single worldwide quality standard for its products, when the world-class sensitized products marked as "Made in China" were first exported from Xiamen to the worldwide markets, they achieved a strong position as well as a positive image on the international imaging market. Kodak has brought the best of the world to China through local manufacturing and the introduction of state-of-the-art technology and management expertise. In the meantime, Kodak has brought the best of China to the world by exporting "Made in China" products of world-class quality. In August 1999 the State Development Planning Commission, at the request of the State Council, formed a special investigation team to conduct a comprehensive inspection of the Kodak Project. After the inspection, the team fully recognized Kodak's accomplishments and proposed in its summary report the "Kodak Model", a new model of utilizing foreign investment where the central government took the lead in planning and coordinating the joint venture cooperation between a multinational company and a number of struggling domestic enterprises in the same industry. This is a classic case of "when to advance and when to retreat, as well as what to do and what not to do" in the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform.
 
Editor: Wing