The Danish Consulate in Chongqing organized a business visit to Chongqing and Chengdu in West China on May 13-16, aiming to promote Danish products, technologies and know-how to the Chinese nursing home market. Fifteen participating companies visited three nursing homes and met with the local civil Affairs Bureaus, potential Chinese partners and customers.
“In our meetings with local Civil Affairs Bureaus, we learned that China is looking to expand its nursing homes sector,” said Consul in Chongqing Hans Halskov. “The local governments are very kind to support us in our vision to build Danish-inspired nursing homes in West China in a few years.
“The Trade Council’s vision is to coordinate, organize and facilitate the establishment of a nursing home with Danish standards. During the trip, Danish companies also met their own contacts such as Chinese customers and partners for individual projects, which will hopefully result in increased Danish exports.”
The participating companies represented a variety of stakeholders related to the nursing home sector such as architects, operators, education providers, equipment manufacturers and professional consultants as well as Danish investors.
One of the participants was Ergolet whose core competency is patient lifting solutions. Ergolet began looking at China as an export market at the beginning of this year.
“During our visit to Chongqing and Chengdu, we discovered that there is a need for our products in China. Additionally, I found it interesting to attend a business promotion with participants from such different areas, all of which relate to the nursing home sector and complement each other well,” said Export manager for Ergolet, Philip Harris.
Another company, who participated, was Type2dialog, which provides healthcare competency development of employees in approx. 30% of the Danish municipalities.
Director Helene Hoffmann says: “This is our first trip to China in order to assess the need and market opportunities. And I must say, the potential is enormous. We’ve gotten more serious potential customers which we will definitely go home and follow up on. So the next step is to adapt our products to the Chinese market and then find local partners. So it has certainly been a rewarding trip.”
The background for the visit is the increasing number of elderly Chinese, who will need care in the coming years due to China’s demographical development. As a consequence, China is now opening up to foreign companies in the field of operating nursing homes and, with this market visit, the path is now cleared to the nursing home market for Danish companies. The Danish Consulate in Chongqing plans to arrange another market visit this fall.
One of the architecture firms participating was KPF Arkitekter, who has designed several nursing homes in Denmark.
“We’ve had some good, but long days in Chongqing and Chengdu. I think the consulate have managed to put together a powerful and effective program with a fine balance between getting information about the market in China and providing information to interested Chinese partners,” said Thomas Pedersen, architect and partner in the company.
