"The Spanish-speaking market is important for China, as it has launched economic offices in Spain, Mexico, the United States, and Hong Kong, in less than a year, to maximize trade between China and all the Spanish-speaking countries. In addition, the country's goal is to gradually open offices in other countries in the Americas," said Victor Ladreda, the man in charge of the Economic and Commercial Office for Spanish Speaking Markets that was opened in Hengqin (China).
Beijing's central government opened Hengqin's new free trade area, in the province of Canton, in late 2014 as part of its ambitious 21st Century Silk Road project, and to develop its trade relations with the rest of the world. A few months later the government decided this area would be an exclusive platform for business development with Spanish-speaking countries.
The Chinese Commercial Office has worked with the Economic and Commercial Office of the Free Trade Area of Hengqin in Spain, which is based in Madrid, and together they have launched a project to help companies in the Spanish food sector create marketing networks for their products so that they have greater security, control, and can order at much lower costs than if they were to enter the Chinese market on their own.
According to Ladreda, "the Spanish food industry has shown a lot of interest in entering China. However, we've received many complaints as producers have had bad experiences because they don't know that market, have had poor advice, problems with local partners, and haven't had recurring sales, which has led them to abandon the idea of marketing their products in China. After speaking with many Spanish companies in the sector and analyzing the most common problems found, in-depth, we have developed a project in recent months so that they can compete with more guarantees in China. Our hope is that the Spanish companies in the food sector that really want to have a project in China in the long term and want to create a strong marketing network so that they can have sales in the medium term have the right tools and our continuous support to work in China."
Even though this project started very recently, the Economic and Commercial Office of the Free Trade Area of Hengqin in Spain has confirmed that there are already many food businesses that have shown an interest in knowing its details, and that they have already held meetings with more than twenty companies in Spain, some of which had already traveled to China to find more about the project.
Source: financialfood.es