The "wait-and-see'' stance taken by foreign venture capitalists (VCs) planning to invest in Chinese high-tech companies may last for some time, the China Info-Tech Summit 2001 revealed on Thursday in Shanghai.
Information-technology (IT) companies in China are as much affected by NASDAQ crash as their foreign peers and remain very promising, said Michelle Wu, chief executive officer of China Internet Group (CIG), a Sino-foreign integrated incubator which has funded four Chinese high-tech companies.
"However, it takes time for them to get adjusted to this emerging market,'' said Wu, also one of the organizers of the summit.
Wang Yunxiang, China's consulate-general in San Francisco, agreed.
"Speaking from my experience in the United States, they (foreign venture capitalists) are very interested in high-techs here, but have fears on issues such as government transparency, legal framework and the access for them to exit their capital,'' Wang said.
The example of Tangram Software (Shanghai) Co Ltd might be good evidence for the view.
Tangram won the best presentation award at last year's summit.
The success drew several foreign VCs, and the company entered into investment negotiations.
"However, we failed to finalize them,'' said one manager of Tangram at the summit. "We sensed increasing hesitance from them because of the macro-economic conditions around the world since this January.''
Despite delays and fears, active exchanges buzzed among Chinese high-tech firms and foreign VCs as on Thursday's summit pushed some promising IT-related companies other than dotcoms, such as broad-band expert China NetCom and Chinese media to the forefront.
"However, opportunities in other IT industries, such as wireless communications and semi-conductors, are enormous,'' said a participating foreign VC.
(China Daily 06/08/2001)
