Mats Harborn

China has just ended its 19th Communist Party Congress and people are now analysing what the speeches and statements made will mean for business.

International Forum for Road Transport Technology vice president for Asia Mats Harborn says China‘s President Xi Jinping identified the contradiction between people‘s growing demand for a good life with the country‘s unbalanced and insufficient development.

“In other words, society is not geared toward meeting the demands of the rising middle class.”

Harborn says the middle class in China is demanding the same things as any middle class: safe food, a clean environment, good education for its children, elderly care for its parents, social safety systems etc.

“In his speech the word ‘environment‘ was mentioned more times than economic reform. This is a reflection of that the Party takes the quality of life in China very seriously.”

Five years ago when newly elected, Xi launched the term the ‘Beautiful China‘, which refers to a liveable China for its population.

“There is a clear shift from the old development model based on wild, unregulated growth, to the pursuit of quality of life of the individual. It is also emphasised that sustainable development can only be pursued with the help of strictly enforced rules and regulations.

“For our industry it means that the push for implementing the revised masses and dimensions standard will continue and we are now, a bit more than a year since its launch, seeing substantial improvements of the specifications of heavy commercial vehicles used in China. China is reining in overloading and oversized vehicles. This is not only good for level playing field competition, but it is also good for road traffic safety.”

Harborn says from 1 July this year China introduced the Chinese equivalent of Euro 5 emissions and will move to the Euro 6 equivalent within a few years. He says China has set the target to become a basically modernised country by 2030 and a powerful socialist country by 2050.

To do that, market forces and regulation will have to play their role, but as the legislators have their background and training in the old, redundant development model, Harborn says drafting of new modern legislation poses quite a challenge.

“Therefore it is now more important than ever for western industry and governments to assist in a multi-stakeholder approach to the drafting process.

“This is also why there is a great interest from the transport authorities in China to tap deeper into the knowledge and experience of the IFRTT community. As partners to China in this process our role is not only to provide facts and figures, but even more importantly to explain the principles behind the regulation that we, ourselves, have drafted and put in place.”

Harborn says the IFRTT can assist in creating regulations that are conducive to fair competition and sustainable growth, which also will benefit the ability of foreign companies to compete in China.