Many importers want to make sure that a potential supplier they want to order from really does exist. This is especially important before working with a new Chinese manufacturer for the first time. We have been asked many times to help check on manufacturers in China. In Germany for example you can easily find the basic information about a company via the “Unternehmensregister”. Is there such a registry for Chinese companies and if so, where can you find that?
Company Registry Information on Chinese Manufacturer
Vetting a manufacturer is part of the sourcing process. After finding potential manufacturers, making inquiries, and continuous communication, you will most likely end up with 2-3 potential manufacturers who ultimately qualify as suppliers.
In the next step, one should always do “due diligence”, and check whether the company really exists, whether it is registered where it claims to be, and if the business scope includes the products and services it offers.
Check manufacturer yourself
As a first step, we recommend asking each supplier for a copy of their “Business License (BL)”. This is completely normal and is constantly required in China between business partners. However, we advise against asking for the Business License right at the 1st contact. Only if the manufacturer is eventually considered as a potential supplier for you; but obviously before you sign a purchase contract or arrange a down payment, you should ask for the BL. This also signals to the manufacturer that you are a professional importer with China experience.
The Business License is written in Chinese. You can easily find someone on Fiverr or Upwork to translate the basics for you.
We offer to translate the Business License
For € 10 we translate the most important points of a Business License and provide additional information from our side, which we believe you should pay attention to.
If you are interested in this service, we look forward to hearing from you (see below).
Business Registries in China
There are several business registries at the city level, provincial level, and national level that provide company information on Chinese manufacturers online. The pages are in Chinese, obviously… This is also quite normal since it is the national language. But, that does not make it easy for foreign clients to get information if you can not read Chinese (see also our article: Just reading Chinese).
To our knowledge, there is still no English page with company information.
The second problem. Chinese manufacturers are registered with your Chinese name. This official company name (written in characters) is rarely the same as the English name.
For example, Our company in Shanghai is called Pro China Direct Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. In Chinese and officially we are called: 普 申 贸易 (上海) 有限公司 and if you translate that into the phonetic language PinYin it reads like follows: Pǔ Shēn Māoyì (Shànghǎi) Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī.
Many customers are not aware of this fact and they do not know where to find the official name and then search with that name.
We’ll help you. For a service fee of € 35, we will get you information about the official business registers in China.
We then translate all the essential parts of the company information, such as:
- Status of the registration
- Official company name
- Registration number
- Registered address
- Type of business
- Year of Foundation
- Expiration date of the business license
- Name(s) of the Legal representative(s)
- Name of registration authority
- registered capital
- paid-up capital
- Year of the last company audit
- Business purpose and scope
- Name of the director(s)
Additionally, we can check our internal supplier database and whether we have had any contact with this manufacturer before and, if so, share our experience with the company.
Finally, we would like to recommend further practical recommendations and information based on the information found.
If you are interested in our company information service about Chinese manufacturers, please contact us directly via our form below.
Service Inquiry
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