Chinese SMEs confidently join global competition

HANOVER - With increasing manufacturing capability and desires to expand their business, more and more Chinese manufacturing companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are looking beyond Chinese boundary to join global competition confidently.

At the ongoing Hanover Fair, the world's biggest industrial trade show, nearly one sixth of the exhibitors, came from China.

"With years of investment in technology innovation and improvement in product quality, we feel that we have gained enough strength to compete with foreign companies. So we decided to get out and broaden market overseas," said Li Wenguang, sales chief of a 400-employee manufacturer of reduction drives in China's central Hubei province.

According to Li, the company, Hubei Planetary Gear Boxes, was founded in 2004 and had earned a strong market position in China. But it was not satisfied with the status quo and wished to gain more business.

It was the first time that his company attended a foreign trade fair.

Compared to Li's company, Anyhertz Drive from Shenzhen, which started exporting five years ago, was more experienced in foreign business, as a quarter of the variable-frequency drive manufacturer's total sales come from overseas.

"Our main foreign markets were in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. In Hanover, we wish to get more resources and expand our markets," the company's foreign business chief Ocean Wang said.

For some Chinese SMEs, the purpose of expanding foreign business is not just making money.

"We also wish to help promote our national brand and improve the reputation of 'Made in China'," said Yanbeen Deng, vice president of Sure Instrument from Tianjin.

" 'Made in China' does not mean low price and low quality," Deng said, adding that the competitiveness of Chinese products increased tremendously in recent years thanks to Chinese manufacturers' flexibility in providing services and increasing investment in research and development.

"We see more opportunities as our nation is more and more open to the outside world, and we are confident to join global competition and to win in foreign markets," he said.

At the Hanover Fair, Chinese exhibitors could be seen in almost every exhibition hall.

"I feel that it is a very good strategy of Chinese companies to be here year by year continuously on the trade show," said Jochen Koeckler, a member of the Managing Board of Deutsche Messe responsible for the fair.

"That is a strong signal that China is really willing to be more open, and is willing to be one of the industrial nations of the world."