OREANDA-NEWS. December 15, 2014. When people talk about the weather in Denmark's capital Copenhagen, the most frequent topic is astonishingly about China's haze.

As the smog plaguing eastern China has become a key indicator of development and public as well as government concern, North Europeans have sensed business opportunities, Guangzhou's 21st Century Business Review reports.

Haldor Topsoe is a Danish catalysis company which has sensed business opportunity in China. Three years ago, Topsoe, which had spent 70 years to reach a revenue of DKK6 billion (USD1 billion), has set a new sales target of DKK30 billion (USD 5 billion), as China has become its second biggest market globally.

Topsoe saw its chance in 2011 when it began to change strategy, aiming to reach a global revenue of DKK30 billion by 2025. It's an ambitious target as its 2012 revenues reached only DKK5.2 billion (USD 866 million).

The new goal has a lot to do with changes in the Chinese market. In 2011, Topsoe officially set up a fully-owned subsidiary in China, beginning a quick expansion after the Chinese government proposed more stringent energy conservation requirements, emphasizing increased energy efficiency and clean energy use in its 12th five-year national development plan.

Topsoe has enabled China's refineries to refine high-quality oil and provided technologies in smoke and exhaust gas denitration to power plants and diesel manufacturers, said Liu Ke, vice president of Topsoe China.

In late 2012, industry experts said China's oil products contained high levels of sulfur, which after burning, would have become pollutants for PM2.5. In February 2013, the government decided to upgrade the quality of oil products–a move that made Topsoe's business boom.

The policy change led to more orders for Topsoe products, and the company actually had to start rejecting many orders due to insufficient production capacity, said Ma Nan, sales manager of Topsoe China.

Before 2014, Topsoe had no production bases in China, relying only on imports from its European factories. In April 2014, the company signed an agreement with Tianjin's economic technology zone to invest in a DKK900 million (USD 150 million) factory to produce car catalysts.

Topsoe is not the only North European company zeroing in on the Chinese market.

Alfa Laval, a Swedish company, specializes in making products used to heat, cool, separate and transport such products as oil, water, chemicals, beverages, foodstuffs, starch and pharmaceuticals. Since 2000, Alfa Laval's business in China has risen more than 430%, or an average annual growth of nearly 20%.