For China to turn the tide and allow European companies to develop and contribute to their full potential, we really need to see concrete action,” said Jens Eskelund, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.”
Slowing economic growth and a weaker than expected recovery after the lifting of pandemic restrictions are the most important factors dampening confidence among European businesses. But most businesses said they had missed opportunities as a result of market access and regulatory barriers.Many companies complain about the ambiguity of Chinese business regulations and there is widespread confusion about the scope of a new counter-espionage law that comes into force next week.
“Many European companies are now focusing more on how to make their China operations more durable instead of capturing greater market share, which is not good for competition,” he said.Both the United States and the European Union have called for “de-risking” from China but Mr Eskelund said the EU had yet to define precisely what it would involve. He said he expected de-risking to be limited to reducing dependency on China for a limited number of commodities.
“In many ways this discussion is still relatively immature. We are still very much discussing it mostly at a conceptual level and I think we need to break it down at a more granular level to understand how this comes to impact companies and what it means in terms of our ability to actually function here,” he said.