Continuing on the Chinese theme, Charles Orton-Jones has written an excellent article in the April edition of Real Business magazine which covers many aspects of trading with China.

My contribution concerns the importance of building personal relationships and the surprisingly low levels of English literacy amongst the Chinese business community.

Real Business magazine is aimed at MDs of growing firms employing 10 - 500. It has a monthly circulation of approx 42,500 copies.

Although it is more ‘high level’ then Start Your Business magazine, the writing style is very clear and accessible.

In this month’s Start Your Business magazine, I offer some advice for anyone looking to trade with the expanding Asian economies.

If you have never read Start Your Business Magazine I can highly recommend it. It is published every couple of months and has a circulation of around 40,000. It is aimed at people starting out in business and provides some great tips and explains many of the issues which magazines aimed at established businesses take for granted. I only wish something like this had been around 15 years ago when I started out!

They have just signed a deal to sell the magazine through WH Smiths so if you’d like to pick up a copy, that would be a good place to look.

London Translations, one of the UK’s leading business translation firms, forms a strategic alliance with Beijing Sagive Translation Company Limited

A joint agreement announced today between London Translations Limited and Beijing Sagive Translation Co. Limited will service the growing demand for language support as trade between Europe and China accelerates. The companies have agreed to cooperate by providing localization translation support to each others clients, marketing and promoting joint ventures and by sharing best professional practice.

In signing this agreement, London Translations Limited CEO Peter Bennett has chosen one of China’s most experienced and respected translations agencies to provide high quality English into Chinese translation as well as a localization consultancy for UK and other European companies wishing to trade effectively with China.

“The language services business in China is fledgling, with low barriers to entry and no professional body overseeing standards. I am delighted to have found a partner of Sagive’s calibre who has built up an enviable reputation for accurate and effective work. This agreement will literally make a world of difference to UK firms opening trade talks with potential Chinese clients,” said Mr. Bennett. (more…)

Peter Bennett, founder of London Translations Limited is used to travelling the world and has recently returned from Beijing. Here he offers some advice for anyone looking to trade with the expanding Asian economies.

A colleague once told me that a good indicator of economic confidence was the number of construction cranes on the skyline. If he’s correct, Beijing is feeling good about its prospects - very good.

According to figures recently published by the Associated Press, China’s economy grew at a blistering 9.4 percent in the first three quarters of 2005 alone. Yet a pan-European business poll by parcel firm UPS revealed that almost a third (31 percent) of UK business leaders do not consider Asia to be an important trading or production market. To ignore the headlines predicting the ‘awakening of the Dragon’ would be commercial suicide: the world economy is undergoing a revolution as a China-led Asia returns to its historic role at the centre of affairs, according to the Financial Times’ Martin Wolf.

Few of us receive emails in Chinese, but I saw one recently which translated into: “I’d like to spend a million pounds with you…”. Good thing I knew that, and a good excuse, I thought, to spend January in Beijing talking to business representative organisations and growing companies who want to trade with the UK. Perhaps this could be your firm in 2006 but not before you pay attention to the matter of communication – communication in tune with the local culture.

Guanxi - The first word in Chinese trade.

There were no berths available on the night train from Beijing to Xian but we soon found ourselves settling down to sleep as one suddenly came available. A few days later we dined in a restaurant which

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Poor translations can drastically affect any business. Whether it is the lack of communication ability or incorrectly translated documents, any slip can damage sales pitches, relationships and future business, says Peter Bennett CEO of London Translations Limited.

In this article, Peter explains how to purchase translation services so you avoid the embarrassing, all too common mistakes in international communications.

Kadin Hastaliklari Ltd, the Turkish import/export medical device company has suffered in the past as a result of poor translations. A few years ago the company attempted to import from the Czech Republic but had trouble reaching anyone through the details listed on the Czech company’s web site. With no contacts in the Czech Republic and no knowledge of the language, it was impossible to know whether the company even existed.

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