COUNTRY FOCUS

chin the ri cit

There are a number of large regeneration projects taking place in smaller cities across China that offer a good fi t for UK companies with sector expertise who look beyond the capital, writes Janet Tibble

attract new clients. Two years earlier, architectural, design and engineering fi rm BDP had won its fi rst commission in China from IKEA, an existing client, to design three shopping centres in Beijing, Wuxi and Wuhan. Now the multi-disciplinary design

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arlier this year, a UK design company opened a studio in Shanghai to offer a local service for existing contracts and to

organisation has a raft of contracts in China, including the design of a new faculty of medicine at Nanjing University; a masterplan for the Foshan development in Guangdong Province, which will encompass a library and archive, cultural centre, senior university, laboratories and offi ce buildings; an eco-housing project in Nanjing; a landmark leisure facility overlooking Lake Yinshan and further masterplans for Suzhou Dushu

Lake and the prestigious Hua’An County City. BDP has an annual turnover of £76.46m, of which Chinese projects account for just over nine per cent, but that proportion is expected to double in the next 18 months. “The new studio gives us a platform to secure further local work and we already have plans for local recruitment and expansion,” says director and architect Stephen Gillham, who heads up the Shanghai operation.

CHINA ESSENTIALS: factors that boost international success, according to BDP * REPUTATION AND STANDING * COMPANY SIZE * QUALITY OF WORK * LEADING-EDGE SKILLS * INNOVATIVE

26 | springboard | www.ukti.gov.uk