Chinese companies could better survive worldwide competition following
China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) by ensuring their products
meet global standards, Chinese and foreign business leaders agreed recently. "China
will experience more competition with its expected accession to WTO and that will mean all
Chinese enterprises will be forced to upgrade," said Wang Linxiang, chairman of the
board of China's Erdos Cashmere Group.
Patrick Noual, vice-president of the France-based Societe Generale de Surveillance,
agreed that China's lack of standards is a major obstacle to Chinese companies'
competitiveness.
As compared to approximately 180,000 technical standards in Europe, China has only two:
ISO9000 and ISO14000, he said.
He warned that these are not sufficient and that Chinese companies need to become aware
of standards in the global arena to improve their reputations abroad.
While noting that many Chinese enterprises will focus their attentions on their huge
domestic markets instead of venturing into the international market place for some time to
come, the president of the Beijing Stone Group Co, Yang Hongru, said even on the domestic
front these companies still should pursue international standards in order to be
competitive.
"Only companies that have reached global standards will be qualified to compete
and co-operate with their overseas counterparts," he said.
He stressed that higher quality products, financial systems that operate in accordance
with international practices and a corporate culture open to outside influences are key
ingredients to competitive success.
Despite the importance and urgency of meeting global standards, however, Chinese
companies still have a long way to go, said entrepreneur Liu Yonghao, chairman of China's
leading private company, the New Hope Group.
He said Chinese companies lag behind multinational corporations in their financial
capacities, managements, their overseas market presence, and in technologies and human
resources.
But in the view of this private business leader, credibility is one of the biggest
barriers that Chinese enterprises need to overcome to meet global standards.
Liu showed his strong commitment to improving the reputations and credibility of
Chinese private companies by joining 40 other private entrepreneurs in a consortium that
called for improved credibility in May last year.
Despite the great difficulty, Yang said he is confident that a large number of Chinese
enterprises will meet global standards after China's accession to the WTO.
But he insisted that Chinese products should seek acknowledgement of international
standards organizations after having achieved good reputations and high market share
within China.
"Chinese companies have to improve their competitiveness step by step," he
said. |
