A cllient sent me a link to an MP3 interview a while back, saying he had listened to it and it contained really good information on doing business in China. The MP3 can be found here and it is an interview with James Rice, a businessperson who has been living in China since 1990.
Jim has a long and illustrious China business history. Until recently, he was a Vice President and the Country Manager of Tyson Foods, Inc. Before that, he was a Sales Director at Danone Biscuits in China and the General Manager at Shanghai Danone Yogurt Company and CFO of Kimberly-Clark China. Jim recently took on a new job as CEO of CSM China, a subsidiary of CSM, a Netherlands-based company that is the largest bakery supply company in the world (with over 800,000 employees).
The interview is about an hour long and in it Jim talks extensively about the changes he is seen in China. He sees China as presenting huge opportunities for U.S. businesses and he insists China is actually quite open to Western businesses and products. Rice predicts China’s middle class will in about ten years be about equal to the entire United States population. China is not “bikes and straw hats”; the Shanghai Louis Vuitton store is the company’s highest grossing store in the world.
If you want to learn about China business from someone who has walked the walk and knows whereof he speaks, I highly recommend you check out the full interview here.
What do you think?
