GE Reports | Your source for what's happening at GE.

At yesterday’s opening session of the World Economic Forum’s Latin America summit, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez was joined by Ferdinando “Nani” Beccalli-Falco, President & CEO of GE International – who offered ideas on development as the region builds on its current economic successes. “These few things – they are ‘motherhood and apple pie’ as my American friends say — they are simple things,” Nani told the audience. “But prosperity and success always come out of the simple things we can think of.”

A rebroadcast of the opening session is available above. Nani’s remarks begin at the 46-minute mark. You can advance to that time by hitting the play button and then clicking the time bar running along the bottom of the video screen.

With much of its locomotive fleet nearly four decades old, Nigeria is eager to inject new technologies into its rail system as it embarks on widespread upgrades to its passenger and freight lines. As we reported in May, GE recently signed an agreement with the government of Nigeria that aims to throw open the door to a host of collaborations in transportation, oil and gas processing, electric power generation, water treatment, healthcare, aviation and integrated safety and security systems. As part of that goal, today the first of five GE locomotives arrived in the country — with 20 more slated for delivery later this year.

When the largest utility in Central Europe began building Europe’s largest onshore wind farm last year, GE was there, supplying 139 of its giant 2.5xl wind turbines. Now, with construction of the first phase well underway, GE Energy has inked a new deal to provide up to 101 additional turbines. When completed, the site will produce enough wind-generated electricity to meet the needs of more than 400,000 homes.

Earlier today, GE announced that it’s become one of the founding members of a new Japanese-government-led initiative designed to accelerate the development of new clean energy, environmental and healthcare technologies. GE will be one of 16 corporations — and the only U.S.-based company — to each invest $5.3 million in equity in the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), while the Japanese government will invest $872 million. The Japanese government is also providing $8.5 billion in loan guarantees, bringing the total available for investment to approximately $9.5 billion. The move underscores GE’s continued belief that Japan can be a key source of technology for GE’s businesses globally — and it’s part of GE’s ongoing strategy to continue investing in research and development during the economic downturn.

Thousands of government and industrial leaders are currently gathering at the Singapore International Water Week conference to focus on the urgent need for industrialized and developing countries to solve worldwide water scarcity challenges. It’s with these critical issues on tap that GE and the National University of Singapore officially launched the $100 million NUS-GE Singapore Water Technology Center.