HSBC's recent Going International report (survey of 300 international SMEs) found that many SME's are looking to the business development opportunities presented by the markets of India
- 7% of UK businesses are looking to start trading with India in 2010
- 80% of SMEs trading internationally consider it a profitable venture
- 62% of SMEs believe that the UK is well-placed to take advantage of trading internationally in the current climate
- 84% of SMEs said that international trade is important for the long term survival of their business
There is double the number of exporters compared to importers:
- Only 8% of businesses solely import goods & services
- 19% are solely exporters of goods and services
- 54% span both elements of international trade, both importing and exporting
Noel Quinn, HSBC head of commercial banking: The amount of money we are lending on imports and exports now, compared to a year ago, is up 30 per cent.
Ian Coleman, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers: I think first of all I would say research, research, research and that’s tips one two and three. ....many businesses that we’ve seen have made investments in emerging markets almost on trust.
It's just an act of faith rather than trust, an act of faith and I really would urge any of your viewers to look at this in a way that they would any other investment that they’re making in their domestic business, with all the same rigour and investment appraisal techniques that they would apply.
Obviously many people think that the world order is has it has been and as it will always be. I’m not convinced of that personally, just to illustrate the point we discussed the fact that China has the ability to change that at will, it’s a political issue in the case of China.
In the case of India it’s already beginning to happen. Many people will I suspect think that the UK invests more into India than India does into the UK. In the last two years that hasn’t been the case. The foreign direct investment into the UK by Indian companies has been higher than UK companies investing into India. Most high profile transactions have been things like the acquisition of Corus by Tatus Steel, but that was only one of 258 transactions that took place last year between India and the UK.
So the world order can’t be assumed to be constant and immutable and the only thing that I think we can say is certain is uncertainty.
