Doing business in China remains difficult for many European companies and most are still being treated unfairly, a lobby group said yesterday.
The survey came ahead of EU-China talks in Brussels today, where two-way investment and trade are expected to be high on the agenda.
In recent months, Chinese leaders have taken the mantle to defend free trade and denounce protectionism, but the results of the latest business confidence survey by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China suggest that Beijing has a long way to go before its rhetoric matches reality.
Forty-nine percent of the 570 respondents said operating in China became more difficult last year, a slight pickup from the previous year’s reading of 56 percent.
Forty-five percent said conditions were “about the same,” up from 38 percent a year earlier.
A steady 6 percent said there had been an improvement.
Fifty-four percent said foreign-invested companies were treated unfairly compared with their Chinese competitors, little changed from previous years.
That was particularly obvious in environmental regulation, with the vast majority of European companies saying foreign firms were subjected to far more stringent enforcement than Chinese enterprises.
More than half said there had been no increase in market access in their industry, unchanged from the previous survey.
“European companies are not afraid of competition, they just want to compete on a level playing field,” said Mats Harborn, president of the lobby group.
Of the companies polled, most of whom have been in China for more than 10 years, half said they felt less welcome than when they first entered the Chinese market.
Competition is also intensifying with 60 percent of European companies expecting Chinese firms to close the “innovation gap” by about 2020.
“Chinese firms are catching up,” Harborn said. “The Chinese government should feel comfortable that it does not need to protect its industries.”
Looking beyond this year, European companies are largely pessimistic, with only 15 percent expecting regulatory obstacles to decrease and 40 percent expecting the situation to worsen.
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