Europe ahoy!

Though Johan Cheval has never been to China, he rarely begins a day without checking on the latest developments there including job announcements made by Chinese companies expanding in Europe.

Sitting in his office at Brussels International Airport in Belgium, Cheval, a key account manager for Hainan Airlines, says the growing number of Chinese companies in Europe are creating more opportunities for local job seekers, as grim economic prospects have virtually put a brake on new hiring and strained retention prospects for existing employees.

Cheval began his career with Belgian carrier Sabena (now Brussels Airlines), then worked for Scandinavian Airlines for 10 years until September 2012, when poor economic conditions led to him being laid off.

Luckily for Cheval, he did not have to wait long. His exit from Scandinavian Airlines coincided with a move by Hainan Airlines to expand its operations in Brussels.

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Cheval says that he has begun contacting other agencies in Belgium to expand business for the Chinese carrier. Professionals like Cheval can play a big role in developing business for Chinese companies as they have advantages like professional training, rich working experience and market contacts.

"Getting used to the flow of work, however, is not as quick or fluent as it would be in a European airline. I would say that it is quite a normal and logical process as attitudes, character and culture are different in Europe and China. It is a challenging challenge," he says.

Chen Mingqiong, general manager of Hainan Airlines Brussels office and Cheval's supervisor, says: "European employees are now learning to adapt to Chinese corporate culture, while Chinese companies are trying hard to understand the local culture."

Chen says his role is more or less that of an "in-between", through whom Cheval communicates with the company headquarters in China. "It is important for Chinese companies to be more open and flexible in their views if they want to reduce the cultural gap in Europe."

Realizing the importance of the cultural gap problem, many Chinese companies are now conducting frequent "cultural training" programs to keep their European and Chinese employees on the same wavelength.

Chen says Hainan Airlines frequently conducts such programs at its headquarters in Haikou, Hainan province. "There is a special program for foreign staff in Haikou that I will be attending soon. It will be my first visit to China," Cheval says with anticipation.

While creation of new jobs is a sure-fire way of reaching out in Europe, Chinese companies also play a vital role in sustaining the local economy by protecting several old jobs that are likely to face the axe. The white knight role played by Geely during its takeover of the Volvo brand in Sweden is a case in point.

Most Volvo production facilities are in Gent, a northwestern city in Belgium, where 4,926 blue collar (average age: 37 years) and 510 white collars (average age: 42 years) work to keep the production lines humming, says Mark De Mey, PR & Communication manager of Volvo Cars in Gent. De Mey says that the percentage of Belgian and European nationality holders at the units account for 98.3 percent and 1.4 percent respectively.

Merger and acquisition deals by Chinese companies in Europe first surpassed European M&A investment in China during the first quarter of this year, with 32 investments from the Chinese mainland in Europe against 26 deals in China, says a recent report published by global accountancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

"This marks the first time that deal flow volume has been greater to Europe than to China," the report says.

Chinese M&A investments in Europe increased from just 11 deals in 2006 to 61 in 2011, while those from Europe to China declined from a peak of 163 deals in 2006 to a low of 85 in 2009.

Rhine rhapsody

Germany has emerged as the most popular destination for Chinese investment and also as the location for the European headquarters of most Chinese companies.

Christine Stock, deputy section manager of COSCO Europe GmbH, a unit of the state-owned conglomerate COSCO, says the company has more than 170 local employees at the Hamburg head office of COSCO Container Lines Europe and at its branch offices in Bremen, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. It also has 25 German employees at the COSCO Logistics and COSCO Europe Bulk Shipping GmbH in Germany.

According to Christiane Linkenbach, head of marketing & corporate communications at heavy machinery maker Sany Heavy Industry Germany GmbH, says the Chinese company will soon come out with new structures and strategies for improving production in the future. Sany acquired Putzmeister, a German company, early this year.

According to latest estimates, the number of qualified German professionals working directly or indirectly for Chinese companies could well run into several hundred thousands, experts say.

Walter Schuhen, PR and marketing director of Dusseldorf China Center (DCC), is just one of such several Chinese-speaking German professionals. Schuhen has worked for more than three years with the DCC, a platform for economic and cultural exchanges between German and Chinese professionals working for private companies, governmental and non-governmental companies.

Schuhen has so far made five visits to China. "But in the future, the plans are for me to spend at least three months in a year in China to manage projects inter-continentally." Like many fellow Europeans, he says that China is a fascinating country with a long tradition and history and speedy economic and social development.

Schuhen says that the general consensus among most German employees when dealing with Chinese companies is a sense of security. To some extent, it has also been fuelled by the increased number of employees Chinese companies are hiring in Germany, he says.

"As an employee myself, I think the main challenges are the different cultural and educational backgrounds." Schuhen says that Germans are generally used to long preparation periods and planning cycles, stricter regulations and rules. In contrast, the Chinese are more spontaneous and flexible. "The most impressive feature has been the speedy decisions that are taken and implemented by Chinese companies."

According to data provided by Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union, Germany leads the list of countries in the eurozone that are the least affected by the debt crisis, with an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent during the third quarter of this year. This is half the average rate of the European Union's 27 member states.