Eastern promise

China's economy has been consistently — and somewhat hyperbolically — described as expanding 'exponentially' for what feels likes an interminable period of time. So long that its growth should surely have reached terminal velocity by now.

However, the country's amazingly rapid growth is set to continue well into the future. The need to put this growth into perspective is more than academic, because it could give western firms the foresight to recognise the prospects China still offers, rather than seeing it as an out-of-control freight train that will fly straight by them.

Marks & Clerk recently produced a report, Focus on China, on the republic's industrial progress in three key sectors (automotive, pharmaceuticals and telecoms) through an examination of patents filed there. It unearthed a number of opportunities for western firms to share in the republic's future economic success.

Nowhere was this more apparent than for the automotive sector, in which the report discovered a significant gap in the market for developing 'green' technology.