Expatriate business owners make their mark in city

As Qingdao gains increasing recognition for its investment and living environments, foreigners have swarmed to the city for business opportunities or to realize their dreams of entrepreneurship.

In 2014, the city attracted $6.08 billion of foreign direct investment, up 10.15 percent from a year earlier with more than 2,100 foreign enterprises from 160 countries and regions setting up offices in Qingdao. In addition, more than 100,000 foreigners are living in the city, according to the Qingdao Bureau of Commerce.

With as many as 115 Fortune 500 enterprises, Qingdao has become a breeding ground for foreigners to start their own businesses.

In 2002, a young American named Matthew Bruno quit his first job as an insurance analyst and moved to Qing-dao to become an English teacher. When he went back to the United States, he met with his former employer, who was frustrated by the high cost of transferring 10,000 insurance policies to a new system. Matthew proposed setting up a back office in Qingdao and provided an analysis of the English-speaking skills and operational costs in the city.

Ten years later, ReSource Pro, the company Bruno founded, has become the leading insurance processing and productivity solutions provider in China and the US. During that time, Bruno married a Chinese girl he met the first year he came to Qingdao and the couple has two beautiful daughters.

"The city's excellent talent pool, sound infrastructure and sufficient government services have played significant roles in my company's success," Bruno told China Daily.

His story is not a rare case and many other foreigners have turned their aspirations into business success in Qing-dao.

Wilfried Vanderbeken first visited Qingdao on a business trip from Belgium in 2008, when he was 55 years old. He fell in love with the city and decided to settle there the following year. He chose handmade chocolate, for which his home country is renowned, for his new venture.

"We make chocolate just like most Westerners make bread and Chinese make dumplings," he said.

He has opened three handmade chocolate stores under the brand Pas in major shopping malls in Qingdao and is bracing for a major expansion of 20 more stores this year. His brand was chosen as the only official supplier of chocolate for the 2014 Qingdao International Horticulture Expo.

"The market potential in Qingdao might not be as large as in Beijing and Shanghai, but Qingdao is my favorite city and I would love to present the most authentic Belgian chocolate to people who live here."

Now 62, he still enjoys working and the experience as an entrepreneur he has gained in Qingdao.

"I am in an industry that makes life sweet, and I would love to make the people in Qingdao feel that sweet every day," he said.

Like Vanderbeken, many people in foreign countries start their business in the food and beverage industry, and Qingdao is home to hundreds of restaurants, bars and cafes run by foreigners, including Koreans, Japanese, Italians, French and Indians.

In another development, 820 foreigners acquired driving licenses in Qingdao last year, which brings the number of licensed foreign drivers in the city to about 10,000, according to the Qingdao Motor Vehicle Administration.

According to Chinese law, foreigners who have stayed in China for more than a year are eligible to apply for a Chinese driving license. If the driver has already obtained licenses in their home country, they only need to pass an exam on Chinese traffic regulations.

Qingdao applicants can sign up at the Registration for Motor Vehicle Drivers on 221 Nanjing Road, where exams in English, Japanese, Korean, German, Russian and Spanish are available.

huqing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/30/2015 page12)