Why go to China

All the companies in the "traditional" industrial sectors (and now many in technological sectors as well) have to contend with this emerging economy, whose growth is relentless. The only way many Italian and European companies can now continue to compete is by delocating their production processes to China. Our major European competitors have already seized the opportunity, putting down solid roots in this Far Eastern country.

How should investment in China be approached? Many firms have made the mistake of tackling investment in China by applying the same systems and business styles that have worked for them on Western markets. In actual fact, a correct approach to investment in China entails knowing and adapting to a great many factors of diversity:

• culture, language, ways of thinking and of relating with others;
• the importance of the public sector, which continues to dominate the economy;
• an extremely unstandardized regulatory system organized on state, regional and local levels, which is subject to very rapid changes.