南方财经全媒体记者李依农 博鳌报道

During the Boao Forum for Asia, SFC reporter sat down with Denis Depoux, Global Managing Director of Roland Berger, to discuss the evolving landscape of China-Europe business cooperation and the growing opportunities for European companies in China.

Depoux highlighted China’s increasingly vital role as a beacon of stability in an era of global uncertainty, emphasizing the country’s consistent economic policies and vast domestic market as key factors driving growth. He pointed to emerging opportunities in innovation-driven sectors, including high-tech industries, where European expertise in machinery, automation, and biotechnology could play a crucial role.

Depoux also noted that as China accelerates its development of new quality productive forces, European companies will encounter even more opportunities to leverage cutting-edge technological advancements. He emphasized that many multinational companies now serve the Chinese market not only because of its size but also because they want to ensure they don’t miss the next big innovation that may emerge from China.

China and Asia as a Beacon of Stability

SFC Markets and Finance: This year’s Boao theme is "Asia in the Changing World: Towards a Shared Future." How do you see Asia, especially China’s role, amid global uncertainty?

Denis Depoux: There is a lot of uncertainty these days. It's a daily uncertainty, particularly driven from the White House. And China and Asia are a bit of a beacon of stability in that kind of chaos for multiple reasons.

First of all, the stability of economic policy in China, and generally in Asia, plays a crucial role. The second thing is that Asia and China, with their huge domestic markets, are huge pockets of demand. So, in a way, Asia, as a relatively self-sustained economy, plays a significant role in stabilizing global growth.

If you look at it from an even more macro perspective, Asia’s growth is double that of the U.S., and the U.S. is double that of the Europe. If you take those three big blocks, it’s a bit of an exaggeration to compare them directly, but that’s how it plays out. Obviously, for multinationals, it makes a lot of sense to focus on the Asian market.

Multinationals Seizing China’s Market and Future Innovation

SFC Markets and Finance: While globalization is facing headwinds, China continues to promote opening-up. What new challenges and opportunities do you see for multinational companies here in China?

Denis Depoux: Export demand and international demand are crucial for China’s economy. In times of uncertainty, that demand may or may not be sustained at the same level this year.

Take the U.S. demand, for example. The versatile U.S. policy and all the uncertainties around it are simply slowing things down. People freeze, companies freeze their investment, and as a result, it may lead to reduced demand directed to the rest of the world, including China. This could be a potential issue for the Chinese economy.

For multinationals, it’s very clear that China is one of the big markets. While it’s no longer growing at double digits or high single digits like it did for the past decades, this is quite normal, given the large economic base. So, it’s still a very big market, one that’s not to be missed.

I think there have always been two main focuses for multinationals in China. One is obviously the supply chain, leveraging China’s role as the manufacturing powerhouse of the world to support global supply chains. The second focus is the Chinese market, which has become increasingly important in recent years—tapping into Chinese innovation and business ingenuity.

Many companies now serve the Chinese market not only because it’s large, though it’s highly competitive with strong domestic players. But they also want to ensure they don’t miss the next innovation that could arise here.

SFC Markets and Finance: How do you feel about European companies' confidence in investing in China?

Denis Depoux: Roland Berger has been conducting the Business Confidence Survey for the European Chamber in China for the past 15 years. I cannot disclose this year's results as they will be published in a couple of months. However, I believe there is still quite a lot of confidence overall. Of course, the areas of concern have shifted. 

In previous years, the concerns were mostly around market access and intellectual property protection, and these issues have improved. There are still some challenges, and companies have pointed out these problems, but now the main concern is the vitality of growth in China—the future of the Chinese economy and trying to predict what’s coming next.

The second concern is competition with domestic players, as Chinese companies have significantly leveled up and are now competing on equal footing in several sectors. This is especially apparent in the automotive industry, but also in the chemical sector, pharmaceuticals, and even sometimes in the consumer sector. As a result, European businesses are facing more challenges.

I think this perspective from European companies is quite healthy. It’s better to focus on the prospects of the economy and be cautious of local competition, rather than worrying about market access. While some concerns remain, most of them are about the predictability of the Chinese economy. In a world of uncertainty, the Chinese market may not offer the same high growth as before, but at least it provides a stable and consistent policy environment.

New Opportunities for Multinationals

SFC Markets and Finance: "New quality productive forces" have become a key focus in China’s development. What opportunities do you think this presents for multinational companies?

Denis Depoux: I think it's a great opportunity. If you look at exports from Europe, one category that stands out is machinery—specifically machine tools and production systems. So, it's not just about the machinery itself, but also the software that accompanies it. Many of these machine tools and their surrounding automation systems come from companies based in France, Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. These innovations have played a significant role in making China's manufacturing sector so powerful because it’s highly automated, able to produce on demand, and capable of quickly reacting to changes in demand.

This represents a huge opportunity. And when we talk about new quality productive forces, it's all about innovation-driven productivity. It's about increasing the productivity of China's manufacturing powerhouse on the supply side. And still today, much of that power is driven by European machines.

This is just one example, but the same principle applies to other industries like biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. In these sectors, many European companies have a leading edge in technologies or know-how and can bring that expertise to their Chinese partners and clients.

SFC Markets and Finance: How do you view the profound impact of technological innovation on the world?

Denis Depoux: Globalization is being reshaped. And we're going to have probably a lot more multi-polar globalization. And that's enabled by technology, because technology can actually create a lot of productivity without the scale, at least with less scale than before, then you can localize a lot of production. And that's how some countries have leapfrogged.

We're dependent on intelligence, smart manufacturing, data, and we don't need so much scale anymore to do what we used to do. It's not true for every industry. I'm a bit generalizing, but I think that's what's changing.

And it's a chance also for emerging countries that can integrate smart ways of producing things and create more added value through integration of technology. The question is, who's going to do this? And I think Chinese companies, because they invest a lot in emerging countries and generally in the Global South, which will create that inclusion.

This is business, so they don't create inclusion only for the sake of inclusion. They create inclusion because it's creating competitive advantage for Chinese companies overseas.

Europe and China Growing Closer 

SFC Markets and Finance: This year marks the 50th anniversary of China-Europe diplomatic relations. How do you see the future of business and investment ties between the two regions? What role do companies like Roland Berger play in shaping this evolving relationship?

Denis Depoux: Europe has always had a privileged relationship with China and has played a big role in growing the Chinese economy over the last 50 years. There are, of course, tensions, but we see that Europe also got a wake-up call from the current US administration that it needed to think of for itself, and not only by purely aligning with the US. And so I see Europe getting closer to China and China getting closer to Europe because Europe and China need each other. And we, Roland Berger, because we are the only major global consultancy of European origin. We play a big role in bridging between Chinese companies and European companies, and that's what we've been doing for the last 40 years of our presence in China.​

Chief Producer: Yu Xiaona

Supervising Producer: Shi Shi

Editor: Shi Shi

Reporter: Li Yinong

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Produced by: Southern Finance Omnimedia Group