Policies creating huge growth opportunities for foreign firms

A foreign businessman looks at information on a home appliance in Zhejiang province on April 20, 2018. [Photo/VCG]

New economic momentum is boosting growth and emerging businesses in China, and in turn creating huge opportunities for foreign companies, according to a top industry player.

"The economy has shifted from high-speed growth to high-quality development with innovation and entrepreneurship continuing to be promoted, thus driving the growth of emerging businesses," said Helen Masters, senior vice-president and general manager of Infor Asia-Pacific, a leading provider of enterprise software products.

"The country has introduced a series of favorable measures on emerging industries and the digital economy, which provides immense market potential," she said.

Infor mainly helps customers to digitalize their businesses, such as coping with larger data volumes and escalating complexities. It also helps with deployments in hybrid, private, and public clouds.

With more than 6,000 customers in China including Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co, the New York-headquartered company aims to double its revenue in the Chinese market over the next three years.

"China is a strategic market for us, with North Asia being a growth engine, growing faster than anywhere else in the world," said Masters.

Sensing huge opportunities from China's upgrading and transformation in the manufacturing segment, Masters said that Infor plans to beef up its presence in the country's digitalization process in manufacturing.

"Digitalization is important when next-generation information technologies such as cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain are developing rapidly in China," she said.

However, compared with developed countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom, where the digital economy accounts for more than 50 percent of GDP, China's digital economy still has much room for improvement.

"The digitalization of more than half of Chinese manufacturing companies is still in the early stages," said Masters.

To this end, she said Infor aims to leverage its technologies to help Chinese customers to build up enterprise-level digital foundation for smart manufacturing, digital supply networks as well as the internet of things platform.

Concerning the current trade tension between China and the US, she said it will have a certain impact on not only the two countries but also global enterprises.

"Trade effects will be transferred along the upstream and downstream of the supply chain and value chain, and the final impact may be passed on to international enterprises and international consumers," she said.

"We believe that China is still a market with immense potential and has an important position in the global market," she said. "We are confident about the Chinese market, where we have many customers and look forward to working with more in the future."