CC-Link: White Paper Exploring Strategies for Chinese Market

Doors that open to commercial opportunities in China are explored in a new White Paper from the CC-Link Partners Association (CLPA). China is set to be one of the major growth engines for manufacturing for decades to come, and many European companies are keen to access this vast market. It is also likely to prove to be a 'hub' from which neighbouring countries will also develop global manufacturing capabilities.
The White Paper, entitled: "Gateway to China - Opening doors for manufacturers in the world's fastest-growing economy", has been published by the CLPA to help manufacturing companies and those that support them to formulate ideas on how to approach the Chinese market. It can be downloaded here.
The CLPA is an organisation of over 1,600 companies who use, support and promote CC-Link, an open network technology for industrial automation. The CLPA operates globally, with offices throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia. Open networks have developed over the last 20 years to overcome the issue of non-compatibility between different makes of control equipment. They allow control engineers to mix and match equipment for many different manufacturers in their systems, rather than having to confine themselves to a single brand.
CC-Link was developed in Japan in the late 1990s by Mitsubishi Electric, which donated its IP rights to the CLPA in 2000. This placed the technology into the public domain, allowing anyone to make compatible products. CC-Link quickly spread to China and neighbouring countries to become a de-facto standard for many industries and is now one of the leading global choices for open networking. In October 2011, the CLPA's European operation launched an initiative called Gateway to China (G2C), aimed at helping manufacturing companies to establish a foothold in China and to develop their business interests in this fast-growing economy.