Diplomatic approach to social enterprise

Miao craftswomen learn to make traditional batik craft and products at a cultural center in Danzhai county, Guizhou province. [Photo/China Daily]

It has set up the China-UK Social Enterprise and Investment Research Center, which will use British experience of social enterprise development to help improve the commercialization of China's existing organizations.

The social affairs sector has a long history in the United Kingdom.

Data from Social Enterprise UK, its representative body, show there were more than 70,000 organizations registered to carry out such work in the country in 2013, employing around one million staff, which contributed some 24 billion pounds ($36.8 billion) to good causes.

Wang Zhenyao, dean of the China Philanthropy Research Institute at Beijing Normal University, says China's social enterprise community certainly lacks nothing in terms of generosity or ambition to do good, but its transparency and operational efficiency must be improved.

The UK's social enterprise system is admired around the world, said Wang, who thinks China can use some of that expertise, with the help of the new research center.