Law firm Pinsent Masons is hoping to facilitate joint ventures between UK contractors and Chinese construction firms and is drawing up plans to lead a delegation to China later in the year.
The trip would effectively be a return match after a 20-strong delegation of chinese contractors and investors visited the UK in late 2012. The visit by the delegation from the China International Contractors Association was hosted by Pinsent Masons. Pinsent Masons has offices in China and has strong links with CHINCA, through its work with a number of Chinese construction firms which it represents in work overseas.
The visits are being planned against a backdrop of UK contractors and organisations seeking more investment in infrastructure, which is a stated aim of the Chinese government.
Graham Robinson, Pinsent Masons’ global business consultant, said: “We are hoping to facilitate more joint ventures and partnerships between the UK and China. Chinese have got the cash, UK contractors need it to get projects off the ground. Potentially there is great opportunity.”
Chinese contractors have traditionally worked overseas in areas such as the far east and Africa on the back of project investment. The Chinese are understood to be interested in the Thames Tideway Tunnel, and potentially projects including Crossrail 2 and HS2 said Robinson.
Robinson said he wouldn’t rule out Chinese snapping up a European contractor either. “But these things happen slowly – that’s how these things operate on a long-term basis.”
Meanwhile, a Chinese sovereign wealth fund is thought to be part of a consortium of investors that has bought into the Co-Operative Group’s huge new headquarters building in Manchester earlier this month.
Elsewhere, bosses from firms including Balfour Beatty, Atkins, Mott MacDonald, Arup, Aecom, Benoy, and John McAslan & Partners, joined David Cameron on a UK Trade & Investment visit to India earlier in the week.
Contract wins were announced to coincide with the trip, including Mott MacDonald being appointed as design engineer for six stations within the £2bn Hyderabad metro project and Benoy being chosen to design a shopping mall just outside Bangalore.
