Dan Harris writes:
The American Chamber of Commerce in China recently came out with a survey of its members and hidden and far more publicized fact that 78% of the respondents said they had been hacked was that only 28 percent of respondents view China’s investment environment as improving, down from 43 percent just last year. In other words, China is getting tougher on foreign businesses doing business in China. Running a foreign business in China has never been easy, but it has in the last few years gotten even harder still.
So what can or should you do? One, consider whether it makes sense to move some (or in very rare cases) all of your operations somewhere else. In the last two years, we have experienced an uptick in our clients expanding beyond China (Vietnam and Thailand and returning home have been especially popular lately) or at least considering doing so. Two, consider not entering China at all by way of actually setting up shop to do business there. At least think about how you can profit from China’s growth without having to set up and operate a Joint Venture or a WFOE there. Selling into China via a distributorship relationship or a licensing deal are just two obvious ways that have grown rapidly in popularity over the last couple of years.
