EU businesses complain of discrimination
May 30, 2011 Category Foreign investment, Weekly
79% of respondents to the Business Confidence Survey 2011 of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants are optimistic about business growth, but 43% believed they had been the victims of discriminatory policies in the past two years, up from 33% in last year’s survey. Some 46% believe discrimination will worsen in the next two years, up from 36% in last year’s survey. 83% of the 598 respondents said they hoped Beijing would make a better effort to promote fairer competition and protect fewer monopolies, while 88% were concerned about the rule of law. The survey results add to foreign companies’ lingering complaints about China’s violation of its free-trade pledges. Chamber President Davide Cucino appealed to regulators to “remove all obstacles” to the creation of a “level playing field”. Charles-Edouard Bouee, Roland Berger’s Asia President, said 70% of respondents had been operating in China for more than six years. 31% of respondents said China was “willing but failing” to implement changes in line with the spirit of its World Trade Organization (WTO) accession agreement. Another 23% see China as “actively seeking loopholes”. In general, however, optimism remains strong among European companies, especially mid-sized and smaller companies with niche products and services, Cucino said. 78% of responding European companies reported a marked revenue increase last year, compared with 50% in 2009, and 71% reported a rise in net profit in 2010, compared with 43% in the previous year. About 70% of the companies reported that profit margins in China were higher than or equal to their worldwide profit margins, and about 59% said they are planning major new investments in the country in the next two years, up 11% from last year.
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