Exporters should look at Asia

Companies seeking to enhance their position in Asia could gain significant benefits from looking beyond India and China, and investing in nations like Indonesia and Thailand.

Singapore’s economy is expected to enjoy growth of 15% in 2010, a total that stands at 7% for Malaysia, 6.6% for Indonesia, and at least 6% for both South Korea and the Philippines.

Indonesia is another attractive possibility, as 55% of its citizens are under 30 years of age, and its GDP is expected to increase by 8% in 2011. LG Electronics and Caterpillar have recently taken aim at the country, where Unilever has already established a major presence.

It is also remarkable that even though India is rightly at the heart of most local strategies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan might offer sizeable returns for early movers.

Thailand is rather more stable than many of its near neighbours, but is equally set to experience impressive fiscal expansion of 8% this year, and has seen consistent improvements in earnings levels in the last decade.

India has some fantastic companies and there is an incredible entrepreneurial spirit. It also has a good record of corporate governance, but it has just become too expensive to invest there and bargains are much harder to find. It doesn’t help India’s cause that there is so much choice within Asia at much cheaper prices.’”

As a result of the cleansing process following the Asian Crisis, the long-term outlook for Asia is good given that balance sheets here are in better shape than in Europe and elsewhere. Asia’s economies will continue to decouple from their Western counterparts, increasingly able to find sources of supply and demand within their own economies. Asia should continue to grow at stellar rates in the near term as well as the long term.”

by Bernhard Adriaensens – International Consultant in Marketing and Management