KNOWLEDGE-DRIVEN YOUNG FIRMS
Private companies not only manufacture most products with "Made in China" tags, but have emerged as leaders in many sectors. Huawei has grown into a global telecommunications leader. Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu are listed as best employers alongside foreign businesses like Microsoft, Apple and Tesla.
The faces of the firms are changing. Emerging new firms are often driven by strengths in technology instead of cheap labor. They typically establish themselves in an innovative way, with huge investments in research.
DJI, a company founded in 2006, is now a global leader in civil drones. It is now expanding quickly in Europe, creating local jobs in the process.
Polly Yu, a project director of Frankfurt Economic Development GmbH who helped DJI enter the German market, said DJI's German branch in Frankfurt was founded with only three employees and has grown to nearly 50 employees from 17 countries and regions in a short time. The employees are on average aged 28 and use English as their working language.
Barbara Stelzner, director of corporate communication at DJI Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said DJI attaches great importance to complying with strict data protection laws and regulations in Europe and guaranteeing customer data security. It launched a "local data mode" to cut off data transmission between the drone and the Internet without affecting safety.
INCREASINGLY INTERNATIONAL FACES
The change is partly attributable to huge investments in education, which have produced a growing talent pool. Meanwhile, more and more people go for overseas studies. In 2017, the number of Chinese students studying overseas totaled 608,400, up 11.7 percent year-on-year, while 489,200 foreign students were studying in China, up 10 percent, official statistics show.
Millions of educated young people are recruited by firms like DJI, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, a reform and opening-up icon that has grown from a village to a metropolitan of about 12 million in just 30 years.
VIPKID, a firm founded in 2013 and driven by IT technology, has quickly become one of the global leaders of online education. The company connects kids in China with qualified native English teachers in over 30 countries, and has also launched services connecting foreign kids with Chinese teachers.
The company enables about 180,000 class sessions every day, a reflection of the enthusiasm for learning English as an international language in China. Cindy Mi, founder of the firm, said her vision is for the platform to "inspire and empower" children to become future and nurture global citizens.
Chinese leaders have voiced their determination to further open China up and support private and foreign businesses.
Bao has seen a change in the faces of the firms, too.
"The younger generation of Chinese entrepreneurs are better educated and stronger in terms of language proficiency. I expect them to be more successful," he said.
