Our man in China supports UK business at one of country’s biggest trade fairs

18 November 2016

 

China trade specialist, Matthew Grandage (pictured right), has returned from Sichuan where he helped man the stand of a UK exporter at one of the country’s biggest annual trade fairs.

Matthew Grandage, Chamber International’s China affairs associate, was supporting British specialist industrial heater manufacturer, LMK Thermosafe, Haverhill, at the West China International Trade Fair held in Chengdu, capital of southwestern China's Sichuan province.

LMK Thermosafe, which won a Queens Award for Enterprise in 2012, has exported to China for more than 15 years and Matthew previously helped the company establish a distribution network in the country, which included finding new distributors and training them to sell LMK Thermosafe products there.

Matthew says: “LMK Thermosafe designs and manufactures very high-quality and high-reliability products and has customers in demanding sectors like petrochemicals, food and pharmaceuticals.

“The Chinese are happy to pay higher prices for well designed and manufactured products and they believe these are available from the UK. The equipment we were displaying meets the toughest ATEX & IECEx international standards for use in potentially-explosive environments – no Chinese company has a product that comes close.”

Matthew Grandage, a mechanical engineer, lived and worked in China for 15 years until 2014 and is a fluent Mandarin speaker. He has made short videos of his experience at the West China International Trade Fair and Chamber International will be sharing these on social media in the coming weeks.  

He adds: “Yorkshire is well known for having many high-quality manufacturing companies operating in many different sectors, and there is a huge potential export market for them in China. Chamber International can help them to get started and provide advice and support to develop their sales in the world’s second biggest economy, including assistance at trade fairs.”

Matthew Grandage’s visit to China came in the same week in November that a Chinese delegation, led by vice premier Ma Kai, visited London after prime minister, Theresa May, gave her long-awaited backing to Chinese investment in the UK’s new Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.

After the meeting, the UK prime minister hailed  ‘the next step in this golden era’ of co-operation between the Chinese as Britain seeks to become a global free trade champion in the wake of the surprise BREXIT vote in June.

 

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Chamber International - Matthew Grandage, Associate for China Affairs