SMEs power new wave of European investment in China
European firms are bringing fresh investment to China, including Hong Kong, and this time it is SMEs seeking to expand into new markets
"We are looking for losers." So went the slogan for a campaign launched by Dutchman Oscar Venhuis and his French partner to promote their new online marketing firm Weblaa late last year. The idea was to find the company with the worst website in Hong Kong and build them a new one free of charge. Unfortunately, their European humour failed to translate and they ended up the losers, receiving just one expression of interest.
"Perhaps the community here does not take this kind of joke too well," Venhuis says. But he has had the last laugh. Weblaa has quickly become a winner for the pair as they take advantage of the growing demand from companies to get in touch with clients online.
Weblaa helps clients, from one-man operations to big conglomerates, design websites, set up e-commerce platforms and launch social media campaigns to promote their products and services. Already, the company is looking like it has a big future.
We didn't really expect any profit when we set up our office in September, but we are actually very busy now, with 15 to 20 projects in hand
"We didn't really expect any profit when we set up our office in September, but we are actually very busy now, with 15 to 20 projects in hand," Venhuis said.
Weblaa is one of a growing number of companies created by Europeans seeking opportunities in the East. According to locally based Europeans, a new round of investment is heading to China and Hong Kong in what has been described as a "third wave of capital migration".
But unlike previous European investment in Asia, which was dominated by big business and state-owned enterprises, the new wave is being fuelled by small and medium-sized enterprises, which may be unknown today but could become multimillion-dollar brands tomorrow.
While overall foreign direct investment in China continued to fall in the first two months of this year, investments from the 27 member states of the European Union climbed 34 per cent to US$1.21 billion - the first rise in more than two years.