A firm making industrial fans has spelled out the pros and cons of manufacturing in China to a UK government minister.

Trade and investment minister Lord Maude was briefed on the issues during a visit to the Chinese branch of Brighouse-based Halifax Fan, where he met the firm’s managing director Malcolm Staff and York Lee, general manager of the branch in Shenzhen.

Lord Maude was accompanied on the visit by Matthew Rous, consul general of the British Consulate-General in Guangzhou and Michael Charlton, acting director-general of UK Trade & Investment in China.

Mr Staff outlined the strategy that enabled the branch to achieve turnover exceeding £5m in under eight years.

He said quality manufacturing to British standards was a key factor in enabling the firm to build custom fans to meet exactly the needs of its clients.

Rigorous staff training was critical to ensure local quality manufacture and to aid workforce retention – along with the adoption of modern technology such as cloud computing to link the design functions in the Chinese factory with the UK base on the other side of the world.

Mr Staff touched on a number of problems including Chinese government contracts favouring Chinese companies and joint ventures – along with issues of corruption.

He said the manufacturing environment in China had changed dramatically since Halifax Fan opened its branch – with rising costs for wages and materials hitting competitiveness.

Halifax Fan has opened offices in Shanghai and Bangkok to provide sales and service support for the South East Asian market.

The minister was briefed on other issues such as the prevalence of local cheap and inefficient products – but heard that many South East Asian and locally-based western companies were willing to pay for quality, efficiency and reliability.

Mr Staff said their demands were stretching Halifax’s technology to the point that the firm has built up one of the strongest design teams in the industry.

He said Halifax Fan was also helping other UK firmsd to set up in China, adding: “There is great scope for British companies to make a success of manufacturing in China and so penetrating the SE Asian market.”