SME Roundtable in Guangzhou: Insights into China’s Policy Updates

Since the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions in early 2023, the Chinese government has released a number of documents to promote foreign investment in the country. These include the State Council’s “Opinions on Further Optimizing the Business Environment for Foreign Investment and Increasing the Attraction of Foreign Investment” (24 Measures) released in August 2023, and the State Council’s “Action Plan to Solidly Promote High-level Opening-up and Vigorously Attract and Utilize Foreign Investment”, released in March 2024. That same month, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued the “Regulations on Promoting and Regulating the Cross-border Data Flow”, easing the burdensome process of data transfer for foreign companies.   

Although not specifically directed at SMEs, these documents target a few areas which are typical concerns of SMEs, such as access to finance, cross-border movement of capital and data, policy support and subsidies, anti-unfair competition, IP protection, residence permits for foreign staff. Some of these areas were also included in the 2024 Government Work Report.

To discuss the most recent updates and how to navigate the regulatory environment and access the services available to them, the EU SME Centre is pleased to invite European SMEs to a roundtable in Guangzhou. Registration is open to all European SMEs and business support organisations. Seats will be allocated in priority to members of our consortium partners in China, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and the China-Italy Chamber of Commerce, as well as to our MoU partners.

This event will take place offline in Guangzhou and will be held under Chatham House rules.

About the speaker

Liam Jia

Team Lead, EU SME Centre

Liam Jia is a versatile professional with the past 8 years advising European businesses on market access and business strategies to China. He has a solid working experience in project and operations management, financial and risk control in the EU context.

Liam is an experienced speaker and author of publications on a range of topics, including the environmental sector, SME digitalisation and F&B distribution. Great team player, generating positive influence on teammates.