深化国际交流，促进中国企业国际化 | 美妆姚评㉞

In 2025, we published an article titled Deepening International Exchanges for Common Industry Prosperity, anchoring the main thread of dialogue between China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry and its overseas counterparts. Over the past few years, the focus of the industry’s international exchanges has been on removing information barriers, building communication bridges and enhancing mutual trust between industries — the “initial acquaintance stage” of China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry going global. Overseas expansion was carried out mainly through individual enterprises’ independent exhibition participation and one-on-one business negotiations, with the emphasis on mutual understanding and network building, which can be described as preliminary exchanges of “going out to have a look”. Over the past two years, the China Fragrance Flavor and Cosmetic Industries Association (CAFFCI) has successively sent delegates to conferences of relevant industry organisations in the United States, Europe, Japan, the Republic of Korea, ASEAN and other regions, intensifying international exchanges for the industry. In 2026, the Annual Conference of the European Federation for Cosmetic Ingredients (EFfCI) was held in Athens, Greece, attended by CAFFCI and the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC), together with Chinese local enterprises such as Orui and Ruisun that exhibited and participated at the same time. This visit to Athens marked a continuous elevation of the level of international exchange of China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry: communication has upgraded from one-way information reception to two-way dialogue and joint exploration of rules; overseas expansion has shifted from individual enterprises fighting alone to the industry going global as a group; and short-term business meetings are evolving towards the joint building of long-term mechanisms. This is not only a continuation of the approach to external exchanges developed over recent years, but also a profound restructuring of the internationalisation path of Chinese fragrance and cosmetics enterprises amid the global industrial transformation.

The global cosmetics industry landscape is in a phase of deep restructuring. Industrial competition has long gone beyond the single dimension of product trade and evolved into a comprehensive contest over regulatory rules, ingredients innovation, green standards, safety assessment and supply-chain discourse power. As a global high ground of cosmetics regulation, Europe is home to EFfCI, an authoritative European industry organisation in the field of cosmetic ingredients that is deeply involved in the deliberation of frontier topics such as the review of new ingredients under EU regulations, the PPWR green-packaging regulation, the governance of animal- and plant-derived ingredients, environmental-degradation assessment and standards for bio-based ingredients. It is a core arena where global fragrance-and-cosmetics industry rules are developed, technical debates unfold and policy proposals take shape. For a long time, domestic cosmetics enterprises in China have largely remained rule-followers, often waiting for EU regulations to formally take effect before passively adjusting their product compliance solutions, incurring high response costs and long response cycles, and staying in a downstream supporting position in the division of labour along the global industrial chain.

This year’s Athens Annual Conference created a valuable opportunity for us to embed ourselves in international rule-setting discussions at an early stage. No longer mere bystanders at sessions or collectors of regulatory documents, we engaged face to face with European ingredients enterprises, safety-assessment experts and industrial-policy think tanks, gained an in-depth understanding of the underlying logic of EU regulatory changes, identified in advance policy trends in green transition, ingredients traceability and environmental-risk assessment, and moved the identification of compliance risks in overseas markets to an earlier stage. In doing so, we have secured a strategic window for domestic ingredients enterprises and compliance-service providers to enter the European market. The foundation of internationalisation lies in understanding rules and participating in rule-making. Only by stepping into the deliberation venues of international industry organisations can we grasp the direction of global industrial-standard evolution at its source and reverse the long-standing pattern of “the West setting rules and China passively adapting”.

This visit established a new paradigm of coordinated overseas expansion, with associations providing overall coordination and guidance, research institutions providing technical support at the base, and market-oriented enterprises playing the leading role, thereby addressing the shortcomings of enterprises going global alone in the past. As a national industry organisation, CAFFCI spoke on behalf of China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry as a whole, systematically explaining to overseas counterparts China’s modern cosmetics regulatory system, achievements in domestic ingredients innovation and industrial green-transition practices, dispelling overseas stereotypes about China’s beauty industry and building a holistic image of China’s industry on the international stage. As a nationally authoritative research and testing institution, NIFDC carried out cross-border technical dialogue in a professional third-party capacity, conducting in-depth exchanges on ingredients innovation, striving to promote mutual recognition of test data and alignment of evaluation systems between China and other countries, so as to break through the most critical technical-trust barrier in the internationalisation process. Exhibiting enterprises such as Orui and Ruisun, for their part, moved beyond the positioning of mere technical-service and OEM suppliers and, as technical-solution providers, showcased distinctive domestic ingredients and end-to-end compliance-service capabilities, achieving the leap from “product export” to the export of technology, services, solutions and brands. The tripartite synergy among associations, research institutes and market-oriented enterprises has pooled the strength of the industrial cluster, substantially lowering the information, compliance and trial-and-error costs for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) going global.

To make good use of the platforms of international organisation conferences to accelerate enterprise internationalisation, we must not stop at the brief exchanges of a single conference; rather, we must build regular and systematic international cooperation mechanisms. First, shift from “attending conferences” to “participating in deliberations” and engage deeply in the discussion of topics in international working groups. We should continue to deepen our engagement with international industry organisations such as the PCPC, CE and EFfCI, encourage domestic experts to take part in technical-committee discussions, and proactively turn China’s industrial practices, the transformation of ingredients research achievements and the localisation of enterprises and brands into international topics, so as to gradually gain greater discourse power for the industry. Second, promote two-way coordination along the industrial chain and build a China-Europe industrial interconnection network. On the one hand, we should introduce advanced European technologies and concepts in bio-manufacturing, sustainable ingredients and green packaging to empower the domestic industry and cultivate new quality productive forces in the fragrance and cosmetics sector; on the other hand, we should export high-quality distinctive Chinese ingredients and mature compliance-related technical services, so as to build a mutually beneficial two-way supply chain rather than one-way product exports. Third, improve the mechanism for coordinated overseas expansion and develop a tiered pattern of going global. With leading enterprises setting examples, small and medium-sized enterprises upstream and downstream along the industrial chain should be driven to go global together, sharing the associations’ international channels and the technical endorsement of research institutions, so as to form an internationalisation echelon in which leading enterprises spearhead progress and supporting enterprises follow suit. Fourth, consolidate long-term dialogue channels and translate the outcomes of one-off conferences into sustained cooperation. We should promote regular joint seminars between Chinese and European industry associations, mutual visits between research institutions and joint research projects among enterprises, so as to build a stable and sustainable dialogue platform for the fragrance and cosmetics industries of China and Europe.

At the same time, we must stay clear-headed: the internationalisation of China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry will not be achieved overnight. While recognising the notable progress made in domestic ingredients innovation, brand-internationalisation capability and compliance-service capability, we must also face up to the gaps between China and other countries in sustainable-development concepts, participation in international standard setting and overseas brand recognition. Internationalisation is not simply about exporting products; it means aligning the industrial innovation system, the quality system and the sustainability system with high global standards across the board.

Standing at the critical juncture of global industrial-chain restructuring, high-level opening-up is a must-answer question for the high-quality development of China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry. This year’s series of international conferences, including the EFfCI Annual Conference in Athens, marks a new starting point for the industry’s opening-up to the outside world. We should continue to rely on authoritative international industry-conference platforms to embed ourselves deeply in the global industrial chain, innovation chain and rule-setting chain, uphold the principle of “associations building platforms, research institutions providing scientific support and enterprises acting as the main players”, and steadily advance internationalisation in the form of industrial clusters. By continuously deepening international exchanges, building mutual trust through dialogue and seeking win-win outcomes through cooperation, we will keep cultivating new quality productive forces in the fragrance and cosmetics sector, enhance the core competitiveness and discourse influence of China fragrance flavor and cosmetics industry in the global market, and continue to contribute Chinese industrial wisdom and Chinese industrial solutions to the reshaping of the global cosmetics industry landscape.