Attracting foreign business investment from Asia

As fast-growing Asian corporations and successful technology businesses expand internationally, especially into developed western markets in Europe and North America, it is often uncharted territory for a lot of such companies in terms of investment and business landscape, as well as in identifying commercial partners that they can work with.

We have seen with a lot of inward investment or foreign investment traffic from Asia to the UK, EU countries and the USA where there are challenges on the Asian clients’ side as well as among stakeholders in the markets that they land into. Initial challenges include sifting through a large tranche of market information the companies are often inundated with from some of the target countries. However, irrespective of the information overload, ultimately a lot of the Asian businesses are primarily driven by a combination of three factors: financial incentives; “ease of doing business” (amount of paperwork – lesser the better – and speed of approvals); and rapid access to commercial markets to press ahead with business development. The latter often depends on availability of quality local manpower and/or commercial development partners.

Asia often struggle with set processes followed by institutions in the West and this is where AMA normally acts as a bridge between the overseas investment attraction entities and Asian businesses

Having worked on such engagements for over a dozen years, AMA’s challenges are usually not in identifying and evaluating potential business investors from Asia into Europe or North America which we do as a matter of routine and that’s what keeps us in business. Much of our effort is instead spent in working with our European and American clients (business investment or foreign business attraction bodies) belonging to regions or countries and then educating Asian investors on what it takes to enter the right markets in the West. Educating Asian investors though can be quite challenging because Europe and North America requires stricter standards in regulatory matters (depending on the industry) and in terms of financial compliance. Businesses that are used to getting investments facilitated rapidly through personal networks in Asia often struggle with set processes followed by institutions in the West and this is where AMA normally acts as a bridge between the overseas investment attraction entities and Asian businesses in terms of critical cross-cultural management.