Category Archives: Insights

In two decades, China has become Africa’s most important economic partner. Across trade, investment, infrastructure financing, and aid, no other country has such depth and breadth of engagement in Africa. Chinese “dragons” firms of all sizes and sectors are bringing capital investment, management know-how, and entrepreneurial energy to every corner of the continent. Africa’s largest economic partner In the past two decades, China has catapulted from being a relatively small investor in the continent to becoming Africa’s largest economic partner. And since the turn of the millennium, Africa–China trade has been growing at approximately 20 percent per year. Foreign direct investment has grown even faster over the past decade, with […]

A buyer needs to evaluate the capacity of a supplier to fulfil his requirements. It is part of his responsibility. To do so he can perform an audit or an inspection. Most of us have difficulty to discriminate them therefore we will illustrate the difference between audit and inspection. The buyer needs while purchasing in Asia A buyer should learn about its supplier or potential supplier. To do so, he can examine the quality management system, check the factory and its manufactured goods’ quality. Additionally, he could consider criteria such as: safety, environmental protection or corporate social responsibility. It may surprise most of us, but for all those purpose an […]

Companies from all over the world have taken the opportunity of sourcing in China and outsourced part of their production to China. In theory the profits expected are huge but on the ground, it is not as easy. Many companies encounter difficulties in dealing with Chinese suppliers. Sourcing is an English term that refers to practices aimed at finding, evaluating and contracting with suppliers of goods and services. See our section Sourcing & Procurement The main tasks are: Increased competition of existing suppliers with lower prices Identifying new suppliers for the international market Discovering innovations offered by new suppliers Here are a few tips to source out of China: Use […]