Trade Missions to Central Europe
In March 2007, Asia Business Services (ABS) organised a trade mission from Singapore to the Czech and Slovak Republics. It had a delegation of 9 Singaporean business owners, each looking for business opportunities or to expand their existing businesses.
As it was the first ever trade mission initiated by the private sector from Singapore (or for that matter from ASEAN), the event was given high publicity and coverage by the press and media of both countries. The Presidents of both countries officially endorsed the event and send high and senior officials to open the event and make keynote addresses. Government officers were also on hand to provide briefings on opportunities and trends of the two countries.
Where We Are Different
Trade Missions are usually activities where potential contacts are sought and followup engaged in upon return to home country. In many trade missions, the emphasis is on visiting as many places as possible to meet potential partners. In essence, it is "greet and meet" - namely a name card collection exercise.
In our case, we are not following this usual process:
a) We are looking to begin direct negotiations or indepth discussion the moment our delegates meet up with their potential clients or partners while in Central Europe (and vice versa). We believe that our clients want to maximize their time spent in Central Europe and to increase the probability of a successful tieup. Thus backend preparation work, like what we do, are essential.
b) We are looking to provide relevant and to-the-point information for the making of business decision. Thus we also encourage those clients who are not able to meet our mission schedules to consider undertaking a straw poll. This poll will be a quick gathering of facts and figures of what are already in the market and who the major players are. Such data will allow our client an early feel (similar to a recce in military language) of how they could fare if they were to come over. In some cases, clients conduct the straw poll to confirm their decision to visit Central Europe.
What To Do If Interested
If you are interested to join us for the next Trade Mission, which in this case is scheduled for 3 TO 5 March 2009, please for details.
ABS will be contacting the relevant Slovak parties offering the various business opportunities to advance the business further. Any reader interested to know about the business opportunities or other items presented could contact us at for details.
Joining Us
If you wish to join us, take a look at the costings. |
