However, the Chinese presence in the Netherlands is growing.
About 30 Chinese companies will open branches or European headquarters in the Netherlands in 2011, a growth of 20 percent year-on-year, and the number of Chinese companies in the Netherlands will double or even triple in the coming years, Hilde van der Meer, director of Amsterdam Inbusiness - the official foreign investment office of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area - said earlier this month.
"Chinese companies are just starting to venture out of China, compared to US or European companies which have been doing it for decades, so there is a knowledge and cultural gap which will be closed eventually," Ms. Xia Li, China Account Manager at Rewin West-Brabant, a regional development agency in the southwest of the Netherlands, told Asia Outbound.
"The Netherlands is an obvious choice to locate a pan-European operation, whether it is a European headquarters, a shared services center, a customer care center, a distribution and logistics operation, or an R&D facility," she added. "The country's pro-business environment creates a gateway to Europe that helps international companies succeed throughout the continent."
Zhang Weiwu, general manager of the Amsterdam branch of ICBC (Europe) SA, told Chinese media recently that, while most of his branch's clients are Dutch, an increasing number of Chinese companies, including Liugong Machinery, Huawei and Yantai Wanhua Group, are in talks with ICBC and are considering opening businesses in the Netherlands.
"The local government also wants to attract more investment, so it offers many advantages to foreign companies," he said.
