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.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure