Stephane Rinderknech CEO of L’Oreal China

A1We are happy to see the Chinese economy continue steady growth by shifting the focus from speed to quality, efficiency and sustainability. The future of the Chinese economy looks bright because the supply-side structural reform has gained momentum with preliminary success, while industrial transformation and economic upgrading have been deepened.

China is accelerating the urbanization process by creating 11 million new urban jobs this year, which will bring opportunities for us.

The further opening-up of the market will be conducive to stronger growth momentum in the beauty industry.

A2We not only accompany, witness and contribute to China’s development, but also benefit from it — for example, the recent government reforms, such as lower import duties and the reduction in consumption tax. L’Oreal is always among the first to welcome and react positively to policies with concrete action. We believe that they will boost the local market and benefit Chinese consumers.

We maintain continuous investment in China — we have headquarters, a research and innovation center, three plants, five distribution centers and an academy — and our confidence in the country.

A3The Belt and Road Initiative is accelerating the process of economic globalization and allows global enterprises like L’Oreal to further expand their global footprint. New population clusters bring new growth points for the market. We are more than willing to participate in potential initiatives and to sustain our high brand value and good reputation by bringing products to more consumers.

The initiative doesn’t solely aim to bridge the geographic connections between China and other markets, but also to create innovations from China. L’Oreal shares a similar vision in research and innovation — invent in China, for China, and inspire the world. We hope the superior innovations we pioneer with China will create new value, not only for Chinese consumers, but for the world.

A4We are happy to see China’s supply-side reform continue to gain momentum, producing evolving needs and trends from a growing spectrum of consumers of beauty products. In China, there are 500 million potential consumers, 200-plus rising cities and the world’s No 1 middle class population. With this huge potential, we are expecting a bright future.

A5China’s determination to boost innovation has not only increased competitiveness in the country, but also motivated individual enterprises. In China, we interpret our vision “Invent in China, for China, Inspire the World” as applying our superior innovations from China to the rest of the world. Thanks to the efforts China has made to boost innovation, the country is leading the global digital revolution.

We have started to incubate and scale the next generation of startups in the area of connected beauty, and have cooperated with BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) to serve the aspirations of consumers worldwide with innovations that originated in China.