China now accounts for 59% of new industrial robot installations worldwide. In 2025, it produced nearly three quarters of the world’s electric cars and more than 80% of battery cells. At the same time, Chinese laser-cutting equipment maker HSG operates a warehouse in Gdynia, another in Krefeld, and continues to expand its local support for European customers.
China’s technological progress is creating a new kind of European demand: companies that are highly advanced at home increasingly need local expertise when they scale across Europe.
A company may be strong in product development, automation and R&D, but once it starts selling seriously in Europe, a different set of needs appears: warehousing, VAT, import arrangements, product compliance, service, contracts, employment and local partners. Technological strength does not remove the need to understand how business is actually done in European markets.
How advanced is China today?
In AI, the gap between the leading US and Chinese models has narrowed sharply. According to the Stanford AI Index 2026, it stood at 2.7% in March 2026, while models from the two countries had traded places several times in major rankings since the beginning of 2025.
The difference is even more striking in manufacturing. Chinese factories installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, 20% more than a year earlier and equal to 59% of all new installations worldwide.
China also accounted for nearly three quarters of global electric vehicle production in 2025, while its share of global battery-cell production was above 80%.
The point is that a growing number of Chinese companies now have the technology, capital and international ambitions that make Europe a realistic next step.
Chinese technology goes far beyond BYD, Huawei and DeepSeek
More than 780,000 entities in China were engaged in import and export activity in 2025, while private companies accounted for 57.3% of the country’s total foreign trade value.
That figure does not tell us how many of those companies sell to the EU or how many buy external services in Europe. It does show the size of China’s internationally active business base, including many companies that are now expanding into Europe.
Alongside large groups with their own European legal, tax and compliance teams, there are thousands of manufacturers of specialised machinery, electronics, robotics, energy systems and industrial components.
China’s 专精特新“小巨人” programme, which supports specialised and innovative “little giant” companies, includes around 17,600 businesses, many operating in narrow technology niches. More than 600,000 technology-focused and innovative SMEs have also received support since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Europe already buys huge volumes of this output. In 2025, the EU imported €559.4 billion worth of goods from China. Electrical and electronic equipment accounted for €164.9 billion, while machinery and mechanical appliances added another €106.5 billion.
A specialist manufacturer with a few hundred employees may have its own R&D department, patents and customers on several continents, while still having nobody in-house who deals professionally with German VAT, French EPR, EU product law or the organisation of local service.
A Chinese robot, a Belgian distributor and an office in Düsseldorf
ForwardX Robotics makes autonomous mobile robots for factories and warehouses. The company reports more than 4,500 deployed robots across over 250 sites. At Chery’s factory in Dalian, 435 ForwardX robots handle internal material flows.
In Europe, ForwardX has been building local capacity. In May 2025, it appointed Belgian company Lynx Automation as its distributor for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and opened a demonstration centre in Belgium. In July 2026, ForwardX announced the opening of its own office in Düsseldorf.
Even with a strong product, ForwardX still needed local sales, integration and support.
HSG Laser: Chinese technology, machines stocked in Gdynia
HSG Laser manufactures industrial laser-cutting systems for metal. A European customer buying this type of machine looks beyond technical specifications. Delivery time, installation, spare-parts availability and service response also matter.
HSG opened a warehouse in Gdynia in December 2023 and a second facility in Krefeld, Germany, in March 2025. Gdynia serves Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and eastern Germany. The Krefeld site covers 10,000 square metres and supplies a large part of Western and Central Europe.
By keeping machines in Europe, HSG says it has reduced delivery times from several weeks to as little as two to seven days, depending on the destination.
For this type of product, local infrastructure becomes part of the offer itself. The machine may be built in China, but selling it to a European customer requires warehousing, transport, customs clearance, installation, spare parts and service much closer to the end user.
Dyness sets up a company in Frankfurt
Dyness manufactures energy storage systems. In June 2026, it established Dyness C&I Europe GmbH in Frankfurt, focused on commercial and industrial energy storage. The European company brings together sales, marketing and technical support and is intended to give customers a local point of contact and faster service.
For battery companies, a European presence also comes with regulatory responsibilities. The EU Battery Regulation imposes specific obligations on manufacturers and importers, including technical documentation, conformity assessment, declarations of conformity and CE marking.
Setting up a European company also means dealing with registration, accounting, tax, contracts, employment and the allocation of responsibilities for imports and battery compliance. We do not know which external providers Dyness uses in these areas, but its operating structure shows which capabilities need to be covered on the European side.
Smaller companies face the same questions without building a full European structure
ForwardX, HSG and Dyness already have the scale to open offices, warehouses and their own companies in Europe. Smaller manufacturers face many of the same operational challenges without having the budget to build a complete European organisation.
For a mid-sized company, employing an in-house specialist for VAT, customs, employment law, product compliance, certification, logistics and every other local issue rarely makes economic sense. These companies typically buy the expertise when they need it, using law firms, tax advisers, conformity assessment bodies, laboratories, logistics operators and local representatives.
E-commerce sellers are facing a similar choice. From 1 July 2026, low-value parcels of up to €150 imported from outside the EU became subject to a €3 customs duty. From 1 November, a €2 handling fee applies to each separate item. Irish Revenue confirms that the €2 fee applies regardless of shipment value, including consignments above €150.
This does not affect industrial machinery or energy storage systems, but it puts Chinese sellers of consumer goods in front of a similar decision: keep shipping individual parcels from China, or hold stock in the EU. That creates additional demand for logistics providers, customs agents and VAT advisers.
Since 11 September 2026, manufacturers of products with digital elements have also been required to report actively exploited vulnerabilities and serious security incidents under the Cyber Resilience Act.
Further reading: New €3 + €2 charges are changing Chinese e-commerce in Europe
Finding the right provider is often the hardest part
A European service provider usually sees only one part of the process. The warehouse may be in Poland, the VAT adviser in Germany, the product compliance representative in the Netherlands, the customs agent in Belgium and the law firm in France. The Chinese company has to find these providers and make the pieces work together.
Finding the right company can be a challenge in itself. A business in China may start its search in Chinese, using Chinese search engines, WeChat, industry platforms and AI tools. A European law firm or compliance provider may rank well on Google and be well known in its home market, yet still fail to appear early in that search process.
Mobile search data illustrates the difference in information environments. According to StatCounter, Baidu accounted for 73.49% of the mobile search engine market in China in August 2026, compared with 1.03% for Google.
This is not a measure of the entire B2B buying process, but it helps explain why strong visibility on Google in Europe does not automatically translate into visibility for a buyer searching from China.
We explored this in more detail in our analysis “Visible in Europe, Invisible in China”.
What does China’s technological development mean for European companies?
Chinese companies will increasingly compete with European businesses on technology, price and manufacturing scale. At the same time, the growing presence of Chinese machinery, robotics, batteries and other advanced products in Europe is creating more situations in which manufacturers need local expertise.
The strongest opportunity for European service providers is likely to be among companies that already have the technology, customers and resources to expand, but have not yet built a full European operating structure.
These are companies that may be highly sophisticated in their own field while still needing outside help with tax, law, compliance, logistics, certification, employment or local market operations.
For a European service company, the practical question is simple: will a Chinese manufacturer that needs its expertise be able to find it?
On Xijinmenhu (西进门户), we present European companies to Chinese businesses looking for specific expertise in Europe. Companies working in legal services, tax, product compliance, certification, logistics and other B2B services can apply to be listed on the platform.
After verification, we prepare a Chinese-language company profile and provide a channel for initial enquiries. Enquiries from Chinese companies come through our team, which helps with the initial exchange between both sides. The European company receives the context of the enquiry and decides whether and how it wants to continue the conversation.
Sources
- Stanford HAI, AI Index Report 2026
https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report - International Federation of Robotics, Five Million Robots now Operate in Factories Globally. World Robotics 2026, 24 September 2026
https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/five-million-robots-now-operate-in-factories-globally - International Energy Agency, Global EV Outlook 2026
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2026/manufacturing-and-trade - National Bureau of Statistics of China
https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202602/t20260228_1962661.html
State Council Information Office / GACC: China’s import and export in 2025
https://english.scio.gov.cn/pressroom/node_9018308.html
Xinhua / MIIT: China upgrades support measures to boost SME potential
https://english.news.cn/20260117/6235bf9144304162bc04bf75a14930f5/c.html
- Eurostat, Trade in goods with China in 2025, 10 April 2026
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20260410-2 - ForwardX Robotics: Düsseldorf office
https://www.forwardx.com/forwardx-robotics-expands-european-presence-with-new-office-in-dusseldorf-germany/
Automated Warehouse: ForwardX and Lynx Automation
https://www.automatedwarehouseonline.com/forwardx-robotics-picks-lynx-automation-benelux-distributor/
- HSG Laser / All About Industries, Dual Warehouses Established in Germany and Poland, 16 June 2025
https://www.all-about-industries.com/dual-warehouses-germany-poland-hsg-laser-a-be4931a27be2e8ff6a501554d9c76ca3/ - Dyness, Dyness Establishes European Subsidiary to Address the Commercial & Industrial Energy Storage Market, 2026
https://www.dyness.com/dyness-establishes-ci-europe-subsidiary-in-germany - Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 on batteries
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32023R1542
European Commission: €3 customs duty for low-value parcels
https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/ensuring-fairness-and-safety-eur3-customs-duty-low-value-parcels-2026-06-29_en
Irish Revenue: Union Handling Fee
https://www.revenue.ie/en/corporate/press-office/press-releases/2026/pr-092926-handling-fee.aspx
European Commission: Cyber Resilience Act
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/cra-summary
- StatCounter Global Stats, Mobile Search Engine Market Share China, August 2026
https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/mobile/china/index.html