30th anniversary of the foundation of Glasford International® Deutschland

On the occa­sion of the Spring Con­fer­ence of Glasford Inter­na­tion­al, held in Munich to mark the 30^th anniver­sary of the foun­da­tion of Glasford Inter­na­tion­al Deutsch­land, the Chair­man of Glasford Inter­na­tion­al, Alan Paul, gave a talk about Chi­na to jour­nal­ists in Munich on 24^th April 2015.

The key points of his presentation were as follows:

• After decades of dou­ble dig­it growth, the Chi­nese econ­o­my is now grow­ing a slow­er rate of 7%. This is a very impres­sive growth rate for an increas­ing­ly mature econ­o­my, but it is clear that slow­er growth is the “new nor­mal.”  For­eign com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in Chi­na will need to adapt to this reality.

• Most for­eign com­pa­nies see the eco­nom­ic slow­down in Chi­na as the most impor­tant busi­ness chal­lenge. Oth­ers include ris­ing labour costs; attract­ing and retain­ing tal­ent; mar­ket access bar­ri­ers and reg­u­la­tion; and domes­tic com­pe­ti­tion.  But despite these dif­fi­cul­ties, Chi­na remains a mar­ket which for­eign com­pa­nies can­not afford to ignore, and which is like­ly to grow in sig­nif­i­cance in the com­ing years.

• In this era of rel­a­tive­ly slow­er growth, the Chi­nese Gov­ern­ment will seek to rebal­ance the econ­o­my by encour­ag­ing the devel­op­ment of high­er added val­ue indus­tries and by invest­ing in clean ener­gy tech­nolo­gies, with cor­re­spond­ing less empha­sis on cheap, export ori­en­tat­ed pro­duc­tion and tra­di­tion­al forms of ener­gy and heavy indus­tries.  Chi­nese out­ward invest­ment will con­tin­ue to grow.

• The most strik­ing change in the Chi­nese econ­o­my in the past decade has been the emer­gence of a large and grow­ing mid­dle class, with all the aspi­ra­tions which flow from increased afflu­ence. This trend opens up excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in ser­vices & con­sumer goods, food & agri­cul­ture, edu­ca­tion, health­care, wealth man­age­ment, and leisure.

• For­eign com­pa­nies can con­tin­ue to be suc­cess­ful in Chi­na as long as they are smart enough to under­stand the nature of the changes that are tak­ing place, and nim­ble enough to take advan­tage of China’s growth direc­tion and potential.

• This requires above all attract­ing and retain­ing out­stand­ing exec­u­tives with a deep under­stand­ing of the local mar­ket and the abil­i­ty to devise and imple­ment the right busi­ness strategies.

Glasford Inter­na­tion­al, with its offices in Chi­na and Hong Kong, led by Consultants with decades of expe­ri­ence of Chi­na, is well placed to serve its client and to ensure that they hire the right peo­ple to suc­ceed in this vast and com­plex market.

Born in the UK, Alan Paul has spent much of the last 40 years liv­ing and work­ing in Chi­na in var­i­ous capac­i­ties. For enquiries about Glasford in Chi­na, and how we can be of assis­tance, please con­tact a.paul@glasford.com or b.sun@glasford.com .