GUIDE TO EXPORTING

We’ve all heard anecdotes and stories about dealing with Asian markets. And while you shouldn’t shy away from taking your ideas to the world, you shouldn’t go into it with blinkers on, either. Herewith, dear reader, our ultimate guide to South East Asia a

Some of us might be a bit touchy right now talking about milking the Asian market (phnar, phnar). But there are still great and growing riches to be had around the South China Sea. Here’s how to milk them yourself.

Some of us might be a bit touchy right now talking about milking the Asian market. But despite the recent Fonterra face palm, a few rotten apples and shocks in the stock markets of some of the emerging economies, there are still great and growing riches to be had around the South China Sea. New Zealand business buccaneers with the savvy to operate in places such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia can make good money.

South East Asia and China continue to be our fastest-growing export markets, but there’s been a paradigm shift from simply looking to these places as production sites to seeing the whole country and its potential as a market and business partner.

It’s not hard to see what’s driving this: China generates in a week the kind of wealth it takes New Zealand a year to scrape together. Dominic Barton, global managing director of McKinsey and Company, has worked out a few significant estimates.

“By 2022, China’s middle class should number 630 million. By 2022, we expect China’s middle class to be consuming goods and services valued at US$3.4 trillion. It is imperative that companies get to know the new Chinese middle-class consumer in intimate detail. Consider, for example, that China is already the second largest digital camera market in the world after the United States.

“Or take flat-screen TVs,” Barton says. “In 2012, sales totaled 50 million units – more than the 42 million units sold that year in the US and Canada. China is also already the largest retail market for laptop computers, and laundry softener sales have grown by 20 percent annually for the past five years, exceeding the sales of both Germany and France.”

To this we can add rapid growth in the service sector, reflecting the increasing willingness of Asia’s upper middle classes to spend on entertainment, leisure, care services for the elderly, security services and equipment such as burglar alarms and security cameras and education.

But it’s one thing know the scale of this market and another thing to be able to reach out and take advantage of it. You need detailed intelligence, cultural understanding, and advice on making the right contacts. You need strategy – and you need tactics. This guide provides some basic training, and advice from some of those who know the lie of the land.