CHINA’S NEW NORMAL: DEVELOPMENTAL MODEL REFORM AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FOREIGN BUSINESSES

The present work deals with the New Normal theme in China, intended as the reform programme that the People's Republic of China government has prepared in order to lead the Country through a new transition phase, abandoning the old "World Factory" scheme in search of a new developmental model. This process goes through the relocation of the national economy at a higher stage of the global value chain, paying greater attention to qualitative aspects of economic growth and to the integration into the world economy, by promoting the state of law and a more transparent and foreign business-friendly economic environment. The analysis of the policies and reforms that characterize this change, which focus on the sectors that are considered strategic and particularly significant (environment, health and food safety), lays on the premise that this transition cannot be simply described as a mere convergence towards a western-like model, which resembles the political and economic systems of Western advanced economies. Reform is intended as an incremental process, where a pragmatic approach to adopting the so-called international best practices is carried out without undermining the continuity of the historical, political, institutional and cultural background -even contradictory- of what is considered being the oldest orthogenetic civilization in the world. The key contribution of this work is the investigation of such a critical conjuncture and its implications in relation to the medium and long-term strategies of foreign economic businesses who decide to operate in China, which, on the one hand, can enjoy of great market opportunities prospected by the reforms, on the other hand, must be aware of the challenges, inevitably posed by the changing legal, economic and institutional context