Focus on quality-of-life issues will create new opportunities for Chinese firms
Hong Kong/Shanghai — Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged from this week’s Communist Party congress radiating more power than a supernova. He also may have shifted the corporate terrain by presenting a new economic vision in which rising living standards take primacy over high-speed growth. One big takeaway from Xi’s marathon three-and-a-half hour policy speech last week is that the next five years will be less about stoking economic growth and more about improving quality of life, in a country with a vast wealth gap, housing bubble and world-class pollution challenges. From Intel to Ford, western firms have long recognised the commercial advantages of being a good corporate citizen in China and have opened research centres, shared know-how with local partners and invested in start-ups. Now, the expectation is that foreign companies will need to demonstrate a willingness to improve the lot of ordinary workers to stay in the good graces of Beijing. "Multinationals and local companies...
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