May 13-16, the Danish Consulate in Chongqing organized a business visit to Chongqing and Chengdu in West China, with the purpose to promote Danish products, technologies and know-how in relation to the nursing home industry.
15 companies participated in the visit, which among others offered a visit at three nursing homes, meetings with the local Civil Affairs Bureaus as well as pre-arranged meetings with potential Chinese partners and customers.
"In our meetings with local Civil Affairs Bureaus, we got confirmed that there exists a need for expansion of the nursing home area in China. The local governments are very benevolent to support us in our vision to build Danish-inspired nursing homes in West China in a few years. "The Trade Council's vision is: to coordinate, organize and facilitate the establishment of a nursing home with Danish standards. Beside this, Danish companies also met their own contacts during the business visit such as customers and partners for individual projects, which will hopefully result in increased Danish exports," Consul in Chongqing Hans Halskov said.
The participating companies represented a variety of stakeholders related to the nursing home sector such as architects, operators, education providers, equipment manufacturers and professional consultants as well as Danish investors.
One of the participants was Ergolet whose core competency is patient lifting solutions. Ergolet began looking at China as an export market at the beginning of this year.
"During our visit to Chongqing and Chengdu, we have been confirmed of the need and thus the demand for our products in China. Additionally, I found it interesting to attend a business promotion with participants from such different areas, all of which relate to the nursing home sector and complementing each other well," said Export manager for Ergolet, Philip Harris
Another company, who participated, was Type2dialog, who provides healthcare competency development of employees in approx. 30% of the Danish municipalities. Director Helene Hoffmann says:
“This is our first trip to China in order to assess the need and market opportunities. And I must say; the potential is enormous. We've gotten more serious potential customer we now have to go home and follow up on. So the next step is to adapt our products to the Chinese market and then find local partners. So it has certainly been a rewarding trip."
The background for the visit is the increasing number of elderly Chinese, who will need care in the coming years due to China's demographical development. As a consequence, China is now opening up to foreign companies in the field of operating nursing homes and with this market visit, the path is now cleared to the nursing home market for the Danish companies. The Danish Consulate in Chongqing plans to arrange another market visit this fall.
One of the architecture firms participating was KPF Arkitekter, who has designed several nursing homes in Denmark.
"We've had some good, but long days in Chongqing and Chengdu. I think the consulate have managed to put together a powerful and effective program with a fine balance between getting information about the market in China and provide information to interested Chinese partners,” said Thomas Pedersen, architect and partner in the company. |
