£3bn designs on China

UKTI chief executive Andrew Cahn said the Chinese economy was developing rapidly. “What we are witnessing is a transformation from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Designed in China’,” he said. The 12 member taskforce is made up of British design companies that have already broken into the Chinese market. It will host seminars in China about the strength of UK design and share intelligence with the British design community through training and marketing activities. “Chinese companies are moving up the value chain and increasingly looking to sell their products and services outside their own domestic market. They’re therefore spending more time and money on creative design, marketing and branding,” said Cahn. “The potential market for UK design will develop rapidly as China’s economy moves towards selling more sophisticated products and services into a competitive market place.” Martin Darbyshire, CEO of Tangerine and member of the taskforce said it was wrong to think of China’s economy being based on low cost, sub contract, manufacture. “China is evolving quickly into a high tech, high skilled and highly innovative economy,” he said. “It already has the second largest share of science and engineering researchers in the world, and between 2005 and 2010, the country will graduate some 3million engineers, nearly nine times the number that will graduate in the US.” Steve May-Russell, MD of strategic product development specialist Smallfry and a member of the task force, will address a meeting of manufacturing leaders next Thursday. For more on the event, which is addressing Innovation and Product Development, follow the link on this page.