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China exports
EconomyChina Economy

As China’s firms go global, foreign expertise is becoming a hot commodity

Chinese companies are rushing to hire a range of service contractors to help them expand overseas – from compliance experts to TikTok gurus

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Peng Biao edits a video for a client in China’s southern Guangdong province. Peng is one of many content creators helping Chinese manufacturers expand their reach on overseas social media platforms. Photo: Handout
He Huifengin Guangdong
With domestic profits narrowing and production capacity expanding, China’s firms are continuing to widen their overseas footprints in search of new, more lucrative markets. In this series, we examine China Inc.’s next phase of “going global” and the complex, challenging international environment its companies have chosen to enter.

It is the middle of the night in Dongguan, one of China’s biggest export hubs, but Peng Biao is still editing videos.

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In the footage, a factory owner from the city steps off a plane and greets a Bangladeshi client, before launching into a discussion about the purpose of his trip in slightly hesitant English.

The camera is a bit shaky, but Peng says that gives the scene a more authentic feel. Minutes later, she will upload the video to Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, with artificial intelligence automatically generating English voice-overs and subtitles.

Peng has found a lucrative niche over the past few years helping companies in China’s southern factory belt expand their overseas client bases. Her studio now works with more than a dozen firms in the region, filming videos for them, managing their overseas social media accounts and connecting them with international influencers.

Her business is part of a broader shift quietly unfolding across China’s manufacturing heartlands. With Chinese producers facing slowing growth and intense competition at home, many are seeking to ramp up their overseas sales – and that is creating a huge amount of work for a range of contractors.

Social media gurus like Peng are among the main beneficiaries, but the wave of service outsourcing extends far beyond that. As China’s companies push into new markets, they increasingly need help with everything from regulatory compliance to tax filing and risk control.

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On the ground, you can see far more service outsourcing companies being set up than even two or three years ago
Gao Zhendong, China-Vietnam Industrial Service Alliance
Peng has hopes of growing her tiny studio into a small company, as Chinese factories increasingly seek to cut out the middlemen and connect with foreign customers directly via social media – a trend that exploded during the US-China trade war.
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China Inc. goes global
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