China UK Photo: VCG

 
The Go China program aiming to help British high-tech enterprises to land their operations in China amid strict COVID-19 travel restrictions has been jointly launched by multiple corporations in London and Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province. Industry insiders noted that the prospects for foreign enterprises investing in China are still bright despite the current challenges caused by the outbreak.  

“There is a lot of pent-up demand from British companies wanting to get back or to launch operations in China,” Robin Peter Tensen, CEO of the China office at Globaltech IP, the GO China delivery partner, told the Global Times on Wednesday. Tensen added that the steady rise in foreign direct investment despite the COVID-19 outbreak proves that the global business community still sees massive opportunities in China. 

The program was announced by the Nanjing Overseas Innovation Centre in London (NOICL), which provides assistance and resources in areas such as market research and company registration for UK firms to take their businesses to the Chinese market, according to a statement sent to the Global Times. 

“The whole program is designed to help foreign companies to engage with local industry and the overall ecosystem,” said Tensen.

The first GO China cohort of ten companies started the program in February. The companies are in the software, healthcare and cleantech sectors, according to Tensen, adding that most companies are looking to China for both market opportunities and for longer-term technology development and collaboration, despite some of the current headwinds.

For instance, O-wind, a cleantech company, sees great potential in China’s intensely urbanized environment.

Some 85 percent of companies said that they intend to maintain or increase their investment in China during 2022, according to this year’s British Chamber of Commerce in China Business Sentiment Survey. 

The NOICL was established to increase entrepreneurial exchanges between Nanjing and London. It works with a network of incubators, accelerators, business parks and industry associations from across the UK under the support of the Nanjing Xingang Hi-tech Industrial Park. The industrial park is one of China’s national level pioneer high-tech development zones, which hosts more than 3,000 high-tech enterprises such as Microsoft, LG and Siemens. 

Wu Quan, deputy director of the Nanjing Xingang Hi-tech Industrial Park, noted that the center’s main mission is to create a robust innovation ecosystem between these two great economies with complementary strengths.

“The UK’s strengths in cutting edge AI and access to big data sets in Xingang Park can work well together,” Wu said, stressing that the Go China program gives companies boots on the ground until they have a chance to hire and train a local team.