Strategies For Chinese Construction Firms To Survive And Grow In America

The past three decades has witnessed the rapid development of China's overseas project contracting, especially in recent years, this industry have achieved an unprecedented high level of performance under the guidance of "go out" strategy of Chinese government. However, comparing with top international contractors, China's enterprises still have a long way to go in international turnover or total revenue. It is not surprising when you find Chinese contractors'businesses are mainly concentrated in the in Asia, Africa and other developing countries, while the market share is merely about 1% in Europe and the United States, the mainstream construction market in the world. Therefore, how to penetrate into the high-end construction market in the United States is an critical issue to us, which is of great significance to China's status in international market and the sustainable development of our international project contracting.Based on this, this paper did a lot work on the U.S. construction industry overview, and its market access barriers are analyzed Systematically. At the same time, Chinese enterprises development history in the United States was reviewed, and an in-depth analysis was done based on the SWOT model. The results indicate that skilled workforce shortage, unfamiliar with local rules, unavailable credit guarantees, language disadvantage and other unfavorable factors are main obvious obstacles for Chinese contractors doing business in the United States.As top foreign players in the U.S. construction market, European contractors have accumulated much successful experience deserving for us to study, which will undoubtedly benefit us a lot to engage in the U.S. market. Accordingly, two most successful firms Hochtief AG and Skanska AB were selected as our key objects to study, and the best practices in the business strategy, human resource management and corporate sustainable development were identified, such as an excellent organizational structure, a reasonable expansion strategy, the distinguished corporate values, a sound human resource management system, a good sense of social responsibility and sort of things.From the three levels of the state, industry associations and enterprises, a systematic strategy for Chinese firms to survival and grow in the united states was offered. It indicates that in addition to providing financial & fiscal support, specifying industry rules, offering a information exchange platform, and strengthening diplomatic negotiations and etc are crucial measures of the state and associations to provide a positive macro-environment for Chinese enterprises. Additionally, Chinese contractors should learn from European leading players actively, and keep innovative & enterprising, then there will be a successful way to the United States for them.