The Swedish Minister of Commerce came to China for a short visit. She is the youngest minister in the Swedish parliament, only 29 years old! She started her political career at the age of 26.
The main topic was about SME (small and medium sized enterprises). SME companies in Sweden count for 99% of all the companies in the country so it's a huge part. They are also trying to promote SME companies in China and this meeting was a about "ideas" to the Chinese companies and how to run their business. There were also a few company CEO's giving presentations about their SME's, both Swedish and Chinese. The translator at this event had a really annoying voice...Lots of participants at the event, room was packed!
The EU Business Review was about how European companies see China now and in the future and how it's policies affect them. Some highlights were:
- China is big market opportunity, European companies estimate China’s portion in their worldwide sales to increase
- 22% of EU companies operating in China consider making next big investments somewhere else than in China. This was brought up strongly by the panel members
- Regulatory environment is not getting better, it’s getting worse. Biggest problem is unpredictability and unclear implementation practices. As an example the poor implementation of social security system for expats was mentioned. IP protection is seen weak, even though some improvements have been made. Companies feel that they are not in equal footing with Chinese competitors, and loose revenue because of harsher regulations on European companies
- Difficult to attract expats to China- seems that this is in quite sharp contrast when compared to earlier years report. Speculation among the panel members about the reasons were: a) rising costs in China, and needs to cut costs including expat costs which makes expat contracts less attractive, b) uncertainty in European market, people may want to stay in Europe and hold onto their current jobs and not take risks in moving to China, c) environmental problems, especially in Beijing
- Labor costs are rising, need to cut costs, increase efficiency
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