China- Britain Business Council

Doing Business with China- an Overview

From The China- Britain Business Council

China is changing rapidly. As next year’s Shanghai Expo
2010 approaches, China is preparing for another city to be
in the international spotlight. China is moving away from
the concept of “Made in China” to “Designed in China”. China’s
middle class is growing and the luxury goods market is predicted
to become the biggest in the world. You should never make
generalisations about China or leap to conclusions. Invest time
and effort in learning about the market and you may be rewarded
many times over. This article aims to give you an overview of doing
business with China, what to expect and how to do it successfully.
For a decade now, UK-China trade has grown at double-digit
rates. China is the UK’s fastest growing major trading partner and
a target was set by the leaders of both countries at the UK-China
Summit in February 2009, to double UK exports to China by 2010.
On top of this, British businesses are now the biggest European
investors in China.

British companies have expertise in advanced engineering,
energy, ICT, life sciences, financial services, infrastructure and
environmental technologies to name but a few sectors. These
capabilities make the UK well positioned to offer the knowledge
and innovation to help China reach its goals.

There’s the size of the country to contend with. China is
complex and it is big – comparatively speaking, travelling from
Harbin to Hainan is like travelling from Reykjavik to Casablanca.
For example one of China’s 23 provinces, Hunan province, is
almost equal in size and population to the UK. China consists
of 34 provincial-level administrative areas (23 provinces, 5
autonomous regions, 4 municipalities and 2 Special Administrative
Regions) with their own character, languages, traditions and
economic profiles. It therefore makes more sense to compare
China to the EU than to the USA and many large companies
entering the China market treat it as a global region in its own
right. In order to keep things manageable, focus most of your
research on those cities or provinces that are the most promising
points for market entry.

UK Trade & Investment’s report ‘Opportunities for UK
Businesses in China’s Regional Cities’, conducted by the China-
Britain Business Council and Leeds University, identifies and
profiles 35 Chinese regional cities and maps the wide range of
opportunities these areas offer British expertise. The breadth of
China may seem daunting to those new to the market, but this
report provides an invaluable guide to which regional cities in
China offer the greatest business potential to UK companies. The

full report can be downloaded from here: www.cbbc.org/emails/
RegionalCities.htm

China is changing fast. Its regulations, legislation and
institutional structures are in a state of continual transition.
Patterns of demand can also change quickly. In the late 1990s
there was a surge in demand for telecoms equipment – and with it
UK exports. But this demand peaked and then fell off sharply as
Chinese domestic capacity expanded. By 2003, UK exports of

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