China News Service, September 13 (Dai Yue) A Chinese company has been doing business in the Middle East for five years. Sales were up and service was up and running. The headquarters felt that the business was stable, so they sent a new manager to take over.
But when the new manager arrived, he opened the filing cabinet and discovered that the contracts signed by the company locally, the people hired, and the taxes reported were all under the name of the previous Chinese manager. Once the manager was transferred back to his country, the company didn't even have a legal employer there.
It is equivalent to saying that after five years of working, the company "does not exist" locally.
This is not a joke, it is a real case shared at this year's roundtable forum of "Overseas Environmental Change Trends, Key Implementation Keys and Risk Points for Territorial Businesses" roundtable forum.
It reflects a new change. In the past, when Chinese companies went overseas, they were concerned about where the market was, how low the cost was, and how to sell their products. Now more and more companies are discovering that what really holds them back is not the business itself, but the "services" behind the business.
Who signs the contract, how to file taxes, how to avoid risks, and whether the behavior complies with regulations. No one takes care of these things systematically, and no matter how fast the business runs, it may get stuck at the last step.
This year's Service Trade Fair has set up "overseas services" special areas in multiple thematic exhibitions for the first time, and has built an "overseas service promotion roadshow area" for the first time. These firsts are all sending a signal: the issue of overseas services is changing from "crossing the river by feeling the stones" by enterprises themselves to a national-level exhibition platform that pools professional service resources and allows more overseas enterprises and professional institutions to connect face-to-face.
So the question is, why now?
On the one hand, more and more companies are going overseas and entering deep-water business areas. Compliance has changed from an icing on the cake to a hard bottom line that determines the survival of companies' overseas businesses.
At this Service Trade Fair, the international brand value assessment agency Brand Finance released the "Top 100 Most Valuable Global Services Trade Brands Report 2026" for the first time with the theme of service trade. Its core judgment is: "Go out to measure distance, stay to measure capabilities, and brand value is measured only when you are chosen again."
In other words, going to sea is no longer a question of "should I go?" but a question of "can I stand firm after going?" For today's Chinese companies, whether their service capabilities can keep up determines whether they can really stay in overseas markets.
According to CIIC Consulting’s insights, current overseas companies generally face five core challenges: market entry strategy and assessment, compliance management and risk prevention and control, local ecosystem and cultural integration, product strength and brand strength, and international organization construction and talent management.
Before going overseas, you need to research the market and do certification; when going overseas, you need financial, logistics, and technical service support; after going overseas, you need operation and maintenance and after-sales. Every aspect requires professional services.
On the other hand, the supply of professional services for enterprises going overseas is also becoming increasingly mature.
In the past, there was a lack of institutions in China that understood multi-national laws, cross-border finance and taxation, and global employment. When companies went overseas, they could only find scattered service providers. They often encountered the dilemma of fragmented services, lack of information, and inability to implement the business.
Nowadays, domestic legal, accounting, intellectual property, human resources, and cross-border consulting institutions are growing rapidly, and many institutions have established service networks covering dozens of countries and regions, capable of undertaking full-cycle business in one stop.
Take the Beijing Overseas Comprehensive Service Platform, which was fully upgraded during this year's Service Trade Fair, as an example. The platform has covered information from 206 countries and regions on five continents, integrated more than 230 professional service agencies in 12 categories, and basically formed a closed service loop covering the entire life cycle of enterprises going overseas.
At the same time, the "Regulations of the State Council on Foreign Investment" will be officially implemented on July 1, 2026. This is my country's first high-level administrative regulation in the field of foreign investment.
The new regulations integrate the entire chain of supervision rules for overseas investment, clarifying that investors should complete legal procedures such as approval filing, information reporting, and cross-border fund registration in accordance with the regulations, consolidating the responsibilities of enterprises’ overseas business entities, and supporting professional service institutions to provide supporting support for overseas enterprises.
"Leave professional things to professional people" has changed from an option for companies to go overseas to a must in the real environment.
It is not difficult to understand why professional organizations in related fields concentrated on participating in this CIFTIS, and more than 40 overseas service promotion roadshows ran throughout the entire exhibition.
When enterprises come here, they can directly find corresponding service providers at key nodes such as human resources, finance and taxation, and strategy. Each key node is handled by professional organizations, and together they form a complete service chain.
The significance of several "firsts" in this CIFTIS lies not in the new format, but in the fact that it responds to the pain points of overseas companies. Since service supply began to be systematized, companies going global is no longer a one-person adventure, but a relay effort of a group of people.
