Overseas returnees tell of difficulties in starting their own businesses

The top concern of those returning from overseas who want to start their own business in China is difficulty in dealing with local governments, a survey has found.

Many returnees who have spent several years abroad also face challenges posed by having lost social contacts. Additionally, about 49 percent of the overseas returnees surveyed said they had experienced failure at some point.

In summarizing their problems with integrating into communities, 29.3 percent of the overseas returnees surveyed said they didn't know how to deal with local governments or had problems with the approval process; 26.3 percent found they were unfamiliar with domestic markets, or had difficulty in learning about development opportunities.

The survey results, titled Investigative Report on Chinese Returnees Employment and Entrepreneurship in 2015, were jointly released by the China Center for Globalization and the recruitment website Highpin. The report looked at the careers of overseas returnees who were born in the 1980s and 1990s.

According to the Ministry of Education, 364,800 Chinese returned from overseas last year, an increase of 3.2 percent over 2013. By the end of last year, about 1.8 million overseas students had returned to China, a little more than half of the total number of students studying overseas.

Liu Limin, vice-minister of education, said that "the desire among overseas returnees to start a business has become noticeable", and that "they can deliver advanced technology and management skills and legal knowledge to China, and this could be a new driving force for economic growth".

However, 12.9 percent of survey respondents said it was very difficult integrating into communities upon their return.

Xu Liangfeng, who lived in the United States for 14 years, said the pace of starting a business in China is even slower when foreign capital is involved.

"For administrative approval, it is much easier if the business is only domestically funded. It might only take a month," said Xu, who founded a technology company called Picohood in Beijing's Zhongguancun Science Park in 2012. "However, if foreign capital is involved, it could take several months and even half a year to get a business license.

"If you really want to do something, opportunities are very important. We cannot afford to wait for half a year," added Xu.

Zhu Zhaofeng, product manager of the overseas recruitment department at Zhaopin, a Chinese human resource website, said integration has improved for overseas returnees in the past few years, thanks to globalization.

"Both the market and governments have been trying to keep in line with international practices," said Zhu. "For the human resources industry, there have been more tailored positions for overseas returnees based on their specialty. This also helps them to settle down."

Still, Zhu called on the government to further simplify the process for returnees who want to start businesses in China.

suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn