West Midlands manufacturing firms of all sizes are seeking to reap the rewards of China’s huge spending power.

Dozens of businesses turned out at an event in the region designed to encourage trade with the growing Far East economy.

Many of those present saw China as little more than a threat three years ago, with tiny wages and low commodity prices meaning cheap copies of their products coming onto the market from Shanghai or Beijing.

However, those very same businesses are now profiting from China’s incessant growth by supplying goods made in the West Midlands.

One such example is Birmingham wire manufacturer Webster & Horsfall, which recently received a £15,000 order for a new orthodontic device.

Director Chris Farr explained: “We went over there two-and-a-half years ago to think about importing cheap variations of our product into the UK to try to control some of the market.

“We didn’t want the cheap competition coming in, and we wanted to be in control, but it’s funny how things have turned around.

“Now we have worked with one of our customers, AJ Wilcock from Australia, and set up a small business in the UK turning some of our wire into orthodontic products, and we have had a significant order from China.

“We have gone from thinking of China as being an issue we are trying to control to a place we can sell our added-value products.”

Webster & Horsfall employs 80 people in Hay Mills. Exports currently account for about 10 per cent of sales, but the company is seeking to increase that amount and Mr Farr has identified China as a growth market.

The firm was among 80 manufacturers from the West Midlands to attend a Manufacturing Advisory Service-West Midlands-funded summit on China.

Representatives from firms including Special Metals Wiggins, RNA Automation and Forward Industrial, were given an in-depth introduction to trading with the emerging superpower and were urged to make the most of an economy that is increasingly being led by its domestic marketplace.

Coventry-based textile company Cash’s is another local manufacturer which plans to benefit from spending in China.

The 166-year-old firm has offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai, after following consumers to the Far East, but chairman Andrew Ives said it plans to start making labelling products in China to supply to the domestic market. He said: “Because our major customer base has moved out there we had to follow them. We have been trading in China for 12 years now.

“We have had an export base out there but our business in the Asia Pacific region is probably 65 or 70 per cent of our total turnover and we don’t see that changing.

“We are now seeking to supply the Chinese domestic market.

“We are taking on staff in China so we can do warehousing, distribution and some manufacturing ourselves, so supply to China.”

Cash’s employs just under 100 people in the UK and 10 in the Far East.

Exports to China increased by 40 per cent in the first six months of last year, although from a low base.

UK goods exports to China rose 44 per cent in the first eight months of 2010 to £4.5 billion.

Delegates at the MAS-WM summit heard how the automotive industry now sells 18 million cars in China every year – representing annual growth of 25 per cent.

Martyn Cleaver, managing director of Tyseley-based Forward Industrial Products, said he was keen to investigate selling a new British-made and designed heat exchanger called the Clix Cooler into China. The automotive sector accounts for 46 per cent of the firm’s revenue and it has diversified to be able to grow.

Mr Cleaver said: “I have spent a fortune in China and now we want to start exporting to China.

“The market for heat exchangers, which are used across industry, in the EU is £3 billion, and behind the US China is the second biggest market.

“I know how to import from China – we have got a guy who works for us out there – but he doesn’t know about setting up a factory or licensing products, so step one is getting to know how we can manufacture in the UK and sell out there.”

Forward Industrial Products employs about 70 people across sites in Tysley and Aston.

Mr Cleaver said about £2.5 million will have been invested in the energy efficient Clix Cooler project by the time it launches.

Peter Henderson told delegates at the event how he broke into the Chinese market with Valve Train in Lichfield – a strategy that involved significant market research, plenty of trips overseas and getting the firm’s quality, cost and delivery right.

The industrialist, who subsequently sold the business to a US group, stressed the importance of understanding the culture, the market opportunity and some less well known tips, such as avoiding taxis, hiring meeting rooms instead of hotel foyers and employing a trusted interpreter.

Mr Henderson, who is now managing director of HZ Associates, said: “You aren’t going to sell T-shirts or jeans to China but if you have good products that have some skill level attached to them then there will be people there who will buy it from you.

“There are 80 million people with more disposable income than the average earnings in the UK – that is more people than there is in the UK.”

Simon Griffiths, chief executive of the Manufacturing Advisory Service in the West Midlands, said while China wasn’t the easiest export market, it offered huge opportunity.

He said: “China is perhaps not the first place to go to if you are an export virgin but if you are exporting to places like France and Germany already then obviously China is a big growth market and one that is opening up to us with the disposable income increase.

“That is opening up a greater market for the sort of goods that the UK is good at making. China is the second biggest export market but it is only the ninth largest from the UK so there is a lot we can do.”