EU chamber in China intent on getting Beijing to ‘move the needle’ as ideology curtails commerce
- ‘I can hardly leave my doorstep’: chamber president laments in fresh call for substantial action to restore business confidence among EU firms operating in China
- Comments come a month after 20th party congress raised concerns among foreign investors and stoked uncertainties over China’s future economic policies
European businesses are becoming increasingly concerned about the overriding ideological impact on the business environment in China, and they are looking to Beijing for a “real booster” to restore business confidence in the country.
“[We worry that] China is leaving this kind of successful pathway of opening up and reform and actually has a more politicised environment,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
But he said he still believes in China’s huge market and ability to reform, as “there is no second China”, as China remains the world’s largest auto market and contributes to nearly half of the growth of the world’s chemical market.
Nonetheless, as China’s economy remains constrained, Wuttke said that European companies have started looking to other regions of the world, including India, Southeast Asian countries and Eastern Europe, to gauge whether the investment climate is better elsewhere and see if they can set up another base.