leading many to put these concerns on the back burner

The much-derided venture capitalist can be a useful accelerant for the startup that uses the cash wisely. No matter how good your product, without the right amount of investment you won't be able to scale up product design, research and marketing to the point where you can attract the really big customers, hire the best engineers and source the best components.

The caveat, of course, is that you need to be able to deploy the greenbacks in such a way that your business lifts off, rather than just burning through investors' cash and finding it that much harder to get backing for your next biz. Funding rounds generally come in threes or fours: ABC and D. Should you press on to E- and F-rounds, it is seen as a sign, generally, that your startup is exhibiting a failure to launch and may just sputter out - like some holographic storage startups El Reg storage desk could name...

The A-round gets you serious product development money so you can rent offices and hire engineers. The B-round gets you basic sales and marketing infrastructure, basic business operations and product development up to and past beta test. If you prove that the product works and that customers will pay money for it and like it, then you get the take-off money, the launch pad lift-off C-round.

That C-round will generally dwarf the others because you're doing serious build-out of sales and marketing and business operations infrastructure while continuing product development. The VCs have been encouraged by your results from the A- and B-rounds and are ready to punt in serious amounts of dollars from which they hope to receive a 5X payout when your business is acquired or goes through an IPO in a couple of years time.

Perhaps the commonest bugbear among chiefs of industry the world over is a perceived excess of government regulation. Yet, there can be few countries where this bugbear has more reason to exist than in China. Although China abandoned its planned economy models decades back, centralization, a tilted playing field, constantly shifting rules and opaque investment laws remain a hindrance.

Individual multinational companies, industry bodies and chambers of commerce have all independently made small pushes to reverse this tendency. They have lobbied the government departments or ministries they individually deal with, but so far there have been few concerted efforts.BOPP tape This can be explained through two reasons. Firstly, the centralized nature of the market is not conducive to different sectors of industry teaming up, as each company seeks to preserve its own hard-won vegetable patch. Secondly, while changing regulations and the dominance of State-owned enterprises are shared concerns, profits have remained generally high, leading many to put these concerns on the back burner.

But this must now change. The factors that made the Chinese economy different are fading. The cost of labor is up, raw materials are more expensive, and the government's brand of overarching regulation is no longer viable. There has never been a better moment for multinational companies to band together and make a realistic case for self-regulation.

China has dillydallied with reforms for too long and it may be up to industry to deliver that final push. Ling Hai, Mastercard's Division President for Greater China, recently said that his clients in China made poor strategic decisions in relying too heavily on a government presence in their investments.

There have been some moves toward industry self-regulation already. In 2011, the China Association of National Advertisers launched its own code of conduct, swearing to abide by the law of the land and setting internal rules for the advertising of products such as alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and cosmetics. Given the troubles China still routinely has with false advertising, it's debatable whether this code of conduct has been effective but it is an encouraging start nonetheless.

Generally, it seems that the trend in China is moving from excessive regulation to more focused regulation on a sector-by-sector basis. Massive food safety problems and the importance of stemming fake drugs in China were behind the creation and rebranding of the China Food and Drug Administration. This move was actually welcomed by many international food and beverage companies, who saw the administration as a one-stop shop where they could deal with their concerns. This, of course, was a preferable alternative to the sea of red tape they previously had to navigate.

While true self-regulation may be some years away for China, it is up to pillars of industry to unite to keep pushing for it. Authorities have been waxing lyrical about reform for too long, it's time to give them a nudge out of the door.
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