In the last 40 years approximately 0.8 billion of Chinese were lifted from poverty, something never seen before. With this movement the world’s largest middle class consumer market has been created. In the next few years the Chinese internal demand will overtake USA’s one and become the largest in the world.
China is not a democracy, and people freedom is limited, but very few are now the opponents to the government mainly because of its success in improving people’s living standard. The government is interested to sustain this growth that on one side support the economy and on the other enlarge the consensus. FOEs may find opportunities in many industries: healthcare, consumer products and services, technology (particularly environmental), agriculture, and financial services.
Healthcare is one of the sectors that is now booming in several regions, together with private and public transport (fast speed train network in 2017 exceeded 25.000 km), food industry and tourism.
Quality of the life is becoming important for the new middle class, consequently the demand for clean environment, high tech and luxury houses, high tech commodities and services is increasing.
The traffic authority informed that China is going to launch the first “super highway”, paved with a photovoltaic panels and equipped with electromagnetic coils used by cars as a ‘charging while running’ system. This is just an example on how China is looking ahead to give advanced services.
Because of the increasing concentration in urban areas and consumption increase, waste disposal, both civil and industrial, will be a critical sector where innovations and investments will be welcomed. Recycling technologies, organic waste disposal and biogas recovery are areas of development.
In order to sustain and further boost the internal demand the government is reducing the duties on a multitude of imported goods and decreased the VAT rates on products and services. Starting from July 1st 2018, custom tariffs will be cut on almost 1,500 articles of daily consumer goods.