What are the challenges and opportunities for SMEs considering doing business in China?
There are many opportunities for Scottish SMEs in China because of the scale, rapid growth and emergence of the market, particularly over the past 10 years. But there are also a number of challenges. Many of these are obvious ones such as culture differences but business in China is quite different to business in the west, and that really can’t be underestimated. China is a huge country and vast market which can be a huge challenge in itself, but most importantly it’s also a series of markets which all operate differently. For example the markets within Beijing and Shanghai in the East are different from some rural markets. We have to take every part of the market in China on its own, and look at the challenges and opportunities that these present. The obvious opportunity is the extent of the market development and there a lot of changes within Scottish key sectors of financial services and life sciences, particularly in the last five to 10 years and this presents great opportunities f
