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GE appoints Karim Karti as President and CEO of GE Healthcare Middle East, Africa, Turkey and Russia region

Based in GE Healthcare's regional HQ in Turkey, Karti will support healthcare infrastructure development in emerging markets

Emphasis on GE 's global 'healthymagination' initiative that supports the delivery of affordable, effective and quality healthcare, with focus on increasing access across the region

Dubai, UAE; January 29, 2011: GE Healthcare, the healthcare business unit of the global technology, media and financial services company General Electric Company (GE) , has appointed Karim Karti as President and CEO of its GE Healthcare regional operations in the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, Central Asia, and Russia & CIS. The strategic management move in creating an independent region reaffirms GE Healthcare's commitment to strengthening its presence and investments across these fast-growing markets.

From his base at the regional operations headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey, Karim Karti will play a leading role in strengthening GE Healthcare in these key emerging markets. He is responsible for developing and expanding customer relationships, as well as executing strategies to strengthen long-term public and private sector partnerships that will help transform healthcare delivery.

"Our goal is to reinforce GE 's continued commitment to provide world-class healthcare solutions and services to the region, and proactively identify new areas where we can make a difference. Supporting emerging markets is central to GE Healthcare's global growth, and we are committed to significantly advance GE 's localization efforts via infrastructure build-up and leveraging our strength in service capabilities across this dynamic region," said Karti.

He added: "Emerging markets are in need of innovative products adapted to its needs. It's important to increase people's access to healthcare technology - but healthcare benefits will only follow if that technology is relevant to solving local issues. Our focus is to locally tailor our innovative solutions and services and use them in a way that they become significant drivers of change. In this region, it's about driving increased access, part of GE 's healthymagination initiative. Another key area will be to foster more collaborations with local universities and healthcare providers to design and develop innovative solutions that benefit the communities."

Karti joined GE in 1996 in the GE Corporate Audit Staff. He joined GE Healthcare in 2000 in Global Business Development and served in several General Management, Commercial, Product Development & Services leadership roles in the US, Europe and Asia. Most recently he served as President and CEO of GE Healthcare in Korea before moving into his current role. Before joining GE , Karim was a Brand Manager with Procter & Gamble.

Karti has an engineering degree from Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France and also graduated from the Entrepreneur program of Business School of Lyon.

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About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE ). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.

For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com. For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/

For more information, contact:
Kelly Home / Nivine William
ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller
+9714 334 4550
k.home@asdaa.com / n.william@asdaa.com

© Press Release 2011