China to Remain Key for UK Firms' Global Business Layout, China-UK Business Council Says

China will remain a key part of the global business layout and income of many UK companies, according to the China-Britain Business Council.

One-fourth of the top 100 UK firms in China will continue to invest between USD200 million and USD1 billion in the Chinese market, the China-Britain Business Council told Yicai at the IE Expo China 2024 ended April 20.

Six of China's 27 sources of import and export, including the UK, posted declines in foreign trade, imports, and exports in US dollar terms in the first quarter of the year from a year earlier, according to data from the General Administration of Customs of China.

However, China's goods exports to the UK in Chinese yuan terms rose 2.3 percent in the period, with the green mechanical and electronic industry being the largest by export value, GAC data also showed.

"We have a strong relationship in trade with China," the UK's Deputy His Majesty Trade Commissioner to China Sohail Shaikh told Yicai. "With the shared ambitions the UK and China have on net zero, it's important to work together to help deliver those solutions.

"Opportunities in healthcare, financial services, and education are very strongly combined from the growing middle class consuming here," Shaikh added.

China's new energy and environment-friendly products are cost-effective, excellent in technology, sustainable, and can be global leaders, Aldous Wong, a member of the board of directors of British safety equipment company Halma, as well as chairman and president of Halma Asia-Pacific, told Yicai.

Products made in China have contributed to over half of the revenue of Halma's subsidiary Crowcon Detection Instruments, despite having started overseas sales only two to three years ago, Wong noted. Halma's integrated production, research, and development base for the Asia-Pacific region in Shanghai went into operation last September, becoming the company's only global integrated base.

Technologies, products, and solutions in the field of environmental protection in China are highly homogeneous, so the industry will face elimination and mergers in the next three to five years, Wong predicted, noting that China will prepare clear industry and national standards by then.