Cash-rich Chinese firms urged to take acquisition trail to Japan

Dancers perform the "Hanagasa Odori", a local community dance from the Yamagata prefecture, Japan during the tourism promotional campaign sponsored by the Japan Tourism Agency and the Japan National Tourism Organization in Beijing on June 17, 2012 [Photo/Xinhua]

A component of the Chinese government's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) is to encourage domestic companies of all types and sizes to invest overseas.

Industries suggested as priorities include the energy, manufacturing, service and infrastructure industries.

As the European debt crisis has spread, European nations with growing numbers of vulnerable companies in need of capital have been widely seen as ideal hunting grounds for acquisitive Chinese companies.

But Zhao Xiaogang, chairman of CSR Corp Ltd - one of China's train makers - added the picture in the troubled eurozone remains blurred in his opinion, and that investment closer to home might be more sensible at this time.

"I would suggest a more cautious 'wait-and-see' approach in Europe, until the time is absolutely right. The price of many deals might look attractive, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are good deals."

Zhao said he, like many investors, is more certain about Japan than he is about Europe, and his organization is planning further cooperation with the counterparts there.

"Amid the downward pressures at home, we cannot perform in a market which is shrinking.

"We want to join hands with Japanese companies, to try and develop our business especially in emerging markets, including Singapore and Hong Kong," said Zhao.

"Chinese and Japanese companies are highly complementary to each other."

His Zhuzhou-based train maker in Hunan province is already cooperating with more than 20 Japanese partners, including with the heavy industrial company, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd.

In 2004, China bought an initial 60 trains from Kawasaki and the further development of that technology has been used by CSR Corp Ltd to eventually develop its CRH2 train in partnership with Kawasaki.

Early in 2009, CSR Sifang Locomotive & Rolling Stock Co Ltd, a subsidiary of CSR, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd won the contract to supply subway vehicles in Singapore, to be used on the country's north-south and east-west subway lines.

That highly successful CSR-Kawasaki relationship is typical of the kind of cooperative project that has become a regular feature of the close and growing business relationship in recent years between the two countries.