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And while Liaoning is more welcoming, Kumpfert said that after setting up shop, businesses in Shenyang face similar obstacles, including lengthy waits for permits and “unclear” regulations.
Settling in China can also come at a price: At least one-fifth of EU companies said they have had to share their technology in exchange for market access in the aerospace, machinery, environment, auto, utilities and primary energy industries. economic growth figures from 2011 to 2014.
“All these government projects have ignored principles of supply and demand and created all these problems,” said Jason Lee, Director of Business Development for Eastern America, which bought the land from the city to build the Shenyang American Industrial Park.
“Nowadays, there government support businesses here.
There’s a lot to catch up on, but now they want to work with us as a team,” Lee said, adding that city officials sometimes accompany him to meetings to woo foreign clients. rucks carrying hi-tech car components rumble in and out the gates of an American industrial zone in the heart of China’s rust belt — using roads that the city especially renovated for the complex.
While foreign firms complain about being locked out of large swathes of China’s vast market, the door has cracked open a bit wider in northeastern Liaoning province as the authorities seek to revive the recessionhit industrial region. ‘WORK AS A TEAM’
The bustling activity at the Shenyang Still, the chamber has observed an American Industrial Park, which hosts uptick in foreign entrepreneurs arriving international suppliers for global car in Shenyang in recent years. brands, stands in contrast with the Businesses that specialise in darkened windows and empty parking renewable energy, tourism, agriculture SLOW PROCESS lots of the moribund Chinese factories or advanced technology are well A Shenyang car insulation factory nearby. positioned to succeed in Shenyang manager, Li, is pinning his hopes on
Foreign firms feel more welcome as the city addresses pollution and foreign capital to help the region. in the provincial capital, Shenyang, undergoes a “painful restructuring “If more people come and invest, and in parts of the southwest, than process”, Kumpfert said. then the whole environment will anywhere else in the country, according The Liaoning Pilot Free Trade improve. to a survey by the European Union Zone was launched earlier this year, Employment, revenue, and other Chamber of Commerce in China. and construction continues in the aspects will all get better,” said Li, who
“The local government offers many 48-square-kilometre Sino-German declined to give his first name because benefits, such as easing company Intelligent Equipment Manufacturing he was not authorised to speak with the registration, providing discounts for Park in Shenyang, which hosts BMW, media. factory and office space and giving Siemens and BASF. But at the Shenyang German Sinofamily members three-year visas,” said The city’s Bureau of Foreign Trade Service Centre, most of the offices in Harald Kumpfert, Chairman of the EU and Economic Cooperation said a new building were recently empty, chamber’s Shenyang chapter. data on foreign investment was not showing that the process can still be
Elsewhere, slow.companiesareimmediatelyavailable. increasingly voicing frustration about China’s northeast has long relied on Wolfgang Wagner, Chief Operating investment barriers in sectors from state-owned enterprises plagued with Officer of the centre, says it was not out automotive to finance, while China severe overcapacity in heavy industries of lack of interest — two dozen foreign subsidises its own domestic businesses. that have crippled the economy, costing companies have applied to join but they
The EU business chamber issued thousands of jobs. have struggled to get legal permits to an annual report on Tuesday saying Liaoning was the only province allow them to rent in a governmentcompanies were “suffering from in the country that was officially in owned building. accumulated ‘promise fatigue’” as the recession in 2016, with its economy “First we thought they could move government has yet to follow through contracting by 2.5 per cent. in 2018,” he said. ‘‘ Now it’s not going to on pledges to open the market. The province also admitted to faking be until 2019.” is for more foreign