Go East, young man

"We offer very practical support to SMEs, especially those who are looking at early market penetration," says Anne-Laure Maddy, communications manager at the center.

Dominic Johnson-Hill set up Plastered, a T-shirt store, in a Beijing hutong in 2005. [Provided to China Daily]

Since opening earlier this year, the center has provided support to everyone from established European businesses looking to expand into China to entrepreneurs wondering whether China is a suitable market in which to push a new product.

"People are asking us whether there is a market in China for a particular product and if so how do I go about bringing this product into China. We have had many very technical questions: What are the requirements for importing pet food into China? Is there a market for the wooden stakes used in vineyards?"

The EU is particularly keen to support the internationalization of SMEs, with 99 percent of EU businesses falling into the category. With Europe's own economy faltering, China is a more viable option for expansion than many SMEs and young entrepreneurs initially imagine.

"I think there is a tendency in some countries to think that China is too big for a small company, but in fact there are a lot of opportunities here in certain sectors."

Of particular focus are SMEs and entrepreneurs from the newer member states, which perhaps previously did not enjoy the trade representation of an established chamber of commerce that British or German businesses had access to.

"A lot of enquiries are coming from the different member states, particularly some of the newer member states which tend to have less trade representation in China," Maddy says. "We've been dealing with enquiries from different companies. Some are still based in Europe. This is really the focus of the center, to concentrate on these early stage SMEs."

But regardless of the help on offer, many smaller European businesses remain cautiously optimistic about their prospects in China. A European Union Chamber of Commerce Business Confidence survey released in May showed that smaller foreign owned businesses are, understandably, more reserved than larger multinationals operating in China.

Indeed only 50 percent say they are considering major new investments in China, compared to 75 percent of larger companies. Behind this discrepancy is the 41 percent of EU SMEs who feel government polices have increasingly discriminated against them over the last two years.

"China is a very vast market, it is full of opportunity but it does pose problems to a small business if they don't understand the local business environment or they look to cut corners," Maddy says.

An understanding of the local business environment is often what is lacking from young entrepreneurs and SMEs who want to do business with China rarely have an idea where to start. In 2007, Dave White and Shane O'Neill, a British engineer and an Irish designer respectively, spotted an opportunity to create a business that offers help to these very people.

"I met Shane and we got into a discussion about the problems foreign companies have when they come to China to do business," White says. "We found that especially those companies on a limited budget weren't being offered much support, particularly from the Chinese government side.

"While the EU Chamber of Commerce offers a helpdesk, we found there were limits with what they could help people with. We decided we could help by actually representing foreign businesses ourselves."

White and O'Neill's idea was to provide small businesses that cannot afford their own representation in China with access to their own network of contacts. Their company, Enter the Panda, was born, offering to source, negotiate, oversee quality control and ship 'Made in China' products to retailers and e-commerce businesses around the world.