Chinese business charm offensive aims to rebuild supply chains with human touch after 3-year isolation
- Local governments across China are flocking to send business delegations overseas, striving to shore up export orders and foreign investment that took a heavy hit amid zero-Covid policy
- Chinese exporters are fearful of fiercer competition among themselves, and for some small firms, ‘the next step is to fight with the gloves off’
On his first trip abroad in three years, Chen Yuan, a Chinese exporter of computer and phone accessories, made Dubai his first stop.
He described meeting some long-time clients as “an exciting reunion of old friends”.
“For three years, they haven’t entered China, and we have not gone out,” he said. “One of the clients was so happy and told me, ‘it’s been such a long time since I last saw Chinese faces’.”
Chen set off on December 6 as part of a group of around a dozen entrepreneurs and government officials from Ningbo, Zhejiang province. After four days of meetings with old and new clients and attending commercial events in the Middle East, the group flew to Jakarta to repeat the process all over again.
On the day Chen landed in Indonesia, textile manufacturer Shen Wei, from the neighbouring city of Jiaxing, had just returned from Japan on a chartered flight organised by the city government after attending the three-day Asia Fashion Fair in Tokyo as part of a group of more than 90 textile company representatives.
“It was very common to go abroad to meet clients before, so we didn’t cherish the opportunity as much as we do now,” Shen said.