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EU firms confident about China market: survey

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-30 21:16

BEIJING: A survey released here Tuesday showed that although none of the European companies in China was immune to the financial crisis, most were still confident about the Chinese market.

The survey, published Tuesday by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China in partnership with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, questioned 313 European companies across China in a variety of sectors including industrial goods, professional services and others.

The chamber's annual "Business Confidence Survey" revealed that 71 percent of respondents held that their home markets had been more strongly impacted by the crisis than China.

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Joerg Wuttke, President of the chamber, said its members welcomed the stimulus package and the Chinese government's efforts to sustain the economic growth, adding that China was a bright spot in the global economy and its economy would rebound more quickly than the rest of the world.

China presented a 4-trillion-yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus plan last November to shore up the world's third largest economy.

World Bank earlier this month raised its forecast of China's 2009 economic growth rate to 7.2 percent from its earlier forecast of 6.5 percent, as the country's expansionary fiscal and monetary policies had kept the economy growing respectably.

Some 46 percent of the respondents deemed the crisis would be over in China by the first half of 2010, while 19 percent of them held that it would end by the second half of 2010. They did not see the crisis abating in other markets until the first half of 2011, according to the survey.

"European companies are bullish on China's long-term economic outlook and are positioning themselves for continued growth in this market," he told reporters.

The survey revealed that 37 percent of respondents said China had become a key important market in their global strategy since the financial turmoil, while 24 percent of them said they had higher sales targets in China this year compared to last year, showing China's rising importance in the global strategies of European companies.

Some 65 percent of respondents remained optimistic about the growth of their business sectors for next two years in China. It represented a decline from an 83 percent high in last year's survey, reflecting cautiousness about the medium and long-term economy recovery.