4th Day (15th March 2007)

First up on the day’s trip is a short visit to Guangzhou Zhujiang Brewery Group Co. Ltd right after our sumptuous breakfast in the hotel. It was a pretty short trip to the company, basically we tour around the company and get to see how the beer was processed and packaged with a little bit of explanation by the presenter of how the brewing process work and we had move off for some visitation to the tourist attraction places.


The pretty lady who showed us around!




high tech security system!






the production plant! its big right?

Networking Lunch with Mr. Nee Director of International and Enterprise Singapore

International and Enterprise Singapore was a trade development board before they convert to what they are currently. Their role as presented by Mr. Nee was to help ready investors to invest out of Singapore and help the companies keep a lookout for bigger opportunities of Singapore. The organization strongly believes that if company is able to move and invest overseas, the company will be open to bigger opportunities for a higher profit margin in the long run. They therefore constantly keep track of new business opportunities for Singapore’s ready investors. This is done generally by visiting the rural places to discover new places, and new opportunities. Singaporean turn to them for help when they meet problems as well.

We were told by Mr. Nee that China is the 4th trade partner, and we are China’s 4th trade partners. Singapore therefore has its influential power on China. Guangdong being a very important trade province to China has one quarter of its direct investment. Therefore Mr Nee advises it that Guangdong is one of the first provinces to start the business from. Guangdong law is more flexible as they are more willing to listen to your suggestions and ideas. Mr. Nee further illustrated to us that if the company use to count the number of screws they produce to identify their taxing amount. As time pass, if the company has grow to be more stable, they company will then be able to negotiate for an agreement to pass out the process of counting the screws and negotiate a fix amount of tax to pay, this will not be able to be achieved in other parts of China.

One fact also brought up during the networking session was the reason to why China’s labour has remain this low till today, according to Mr. Nee it is because China has a reserve of 0.8 million of farmers still existing out there.

From the networking lunch we also got to know about the functions of Spring Singapore, for an example they help SMEs to improve productivity and look out for business opportunities but it has no overseas agencies. Whereas IE Singapore helps big and small companies and has overseas agencies. From here, we are able to tell the different functions of IE Singapore and Spring Singapore, therefore in time to come when we do our own business we will be able to know who we should turn to base on our business scales and needs. This will save us much time that would have been wasted.

During the presentation, Mr. Nee said that in the less developed parts of China – further away from the sea having a good “Guan Xi established is very important. But for the other area it is still important for cases where black and white are not clear, laws being les refine meaning it can be interpreted in anyway but not to the extreme, there is a certain amount of ambiguity therefore if you have good “Guan Xi” they will be more willing to help you interpret close to the way you had want it to be interpreted.

It is also noted that different places works differently so there is a different level of “Guan Xi” needed. To illustrate this, 50 RMB to one area maybe a very good bribe (areas further away from the sea), but 50 RMB to a prosperous area maybe very little (areas closer to the sea like Shenzhen and Guangzhou). Even when good “Guan Xi” is established, strength in that market is very important for a business to be successful. According to Mr. Nee, he personally feels that “Guan Xi” only serve as an ENHANCHER, it can only help to smoothen the process of building up the business.

When the group raised a question if having a good knowledge of China’s history is important, Mr. Nee expressed his feeling that it is indeed important. He further illustrate why he has made this conclusion with the example that a Singaporean who know nothing about China finds it a struggle to adapt to it and may give up me easily then one that knows some knowledge, and in this case will be mentally prepared to face it and do something about it, therefore will not give up as easily as the other. He advises that ATTITUDE is a more important key to success. Attitude to adapt to local practice is more important. Chinese culture and language knowledge will be an extra advantage to one.

Mr. Nee also feels that luck plays a part as well, but even then attitude is more important than anything else. The determination to learn and adapt. For example, to produce in different region, it has different comparative advantage. If one is not prepare to adapt to the difference, one will not be successful. But Mr. Nee has also advice the group that one should not adapt and change everything, there are certain things we should keep for example the integrity that Singaporean has. Integrity is the selling point of many Singaporeans. Singaporeans are brought up in such a way that they don’t cheat and give in to bribery. People will tend to hire the trustworthy one, therefore Singaporean are at an advantage when it come to this.

Wholesale market

After the visitation to the wholesale market in Guangzhou, we had been able to understand how businessman actually go about doing much negotiation and how it can turn very sore in different circumstances. During the marketing research there, we could tell that the suppliers were not willing to do business with small amount buyers. They are more interested with big customers and tend to be more courteous to them. They do not carry small amount of stock to be sold on a single basis.

One fact that we all learnt during the marketing research there; they were actually not allowed to sell imitation goods openly; most of them had do it discreetly. They have curtains prepared so that in times of police raids, they will simply draw the curtains up and hide within the store for the time being till the police leave.

Some of the students were almost trick to purchasing the goods at a much higher price; this actually shows how businessman can fall into traps of the locals. From this experience, I learnt that if I were to do business in China, I must be able to tell how the law works well, and not only that study the market from head to toe, know a number of trustworthy locals good friends, this is to prevent me from getting tricked. But this will not stop me from entering if there is an opportunity, there is too much unrevealed and discovered wealth in China still in my personal opinion.