China may have announced that COVID-19 border restrictions will remain in place for another year. However, this shouldn’t prevent your biotech start-up from entering the China market.
According to the US newspaper Wall Street Journal, China is planning to keep its pandemic border restrictions in place for at least another year from now. Officials are fretting over the emergence of new variants and a calendar of sensitive events such as the election later this year. This is all despite a coronavirus vaccination campaign that has topped one billion doses.
The provisional timeline of the second half of 2022 was set during a mid-May meeting of the country’s cabinet, or State Council, attended by officials from China’s Foreign Ministry and National Health Commission, among other government bodies.
Although we might not be able to visit the country in person, the market is still wide open for startups with innovative technology. Innovation is still the guiding keyword in the current 5-year plan which covers the period of 2021-2025.
View China as a potential market? Here’s what companies need to know to accelerate your business:
- If a startup becomes successful in China, the growth can be rapid. With its huge and largely homogenous market, growing economy, increasing consumption, and tech-savvy young generation, there is great potential.
- Foreign startups may have a competitive advantage in the area of technology innovation. High-tech startups with science and technology-based products and solutions face less risk of competition by copycats, because of the amount of time, resources, and knowledge required for product development and prototyping.
- China is a conservative but open market – ready for market penetration. A conservative market means it always takes time for a new brand to establish. However, there is always a market opportunity for newcomers, it’s very different compared to other smaller markets which get easily saturated. People in China are always looking for new business opportunities and one of the best ways to create such opportunities is to introduce new technology and products to the market.
Want to host your business in China? Make sure that you’re ahead of the curve and are aware of these facts which will help accelerate your business:
- China’s progress on innovation is reflected in the annual Global Innovation Index ranking. In the 2020 list, China is the only middle-income country in the top 20, having reached 14th place, steadily moving up from 26 in 2016.
- China is now home to around 30% of the world’s unicorns (private companies valued at US $1bn or more). China’s startup ecosystem is undergoing rapid development. The 2020 Startup Genome Global Startup Ecosystem Report includes two Chinese cities, Beijing (ranked 4th) and Shanghai (8th). This ranking is primarily driven by the question “in which ecosystem does an early-stage startup have the best chance of building global success?”
Are you a start-up aiming for Chinese market penetration? If so, how can you be sure your activities yield just as effective results from a remote location? Here are some suggestions for optimal business acceleration:
- Market assessment: You can identify the potential market needs and access the competitive landscape to understand the opportunities as well as challenges.
- Marketing localization: You can start the creation of tailor-made marketing materials and social media campaigns that help you to generate a virtual presence for Chinese market penetration.
- Sales and business development initiatives: You can establish communication with the local KOLs, verify your localized business model and value proposition.
- Partner development: Start to recruit potential business partners and go through the pre-launch marketing with them.
¹ https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-to-keep-covid-19-border-restrictions-for-another-year-116243617
²ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_of_China#Fourteenth_plan_(2021–2025)
³ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096928/number-of-global-unicorns-by-country/