US business leaders gather this week at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business for the Asia/Pacific Business Outlook Conference (APBO). The conference, co-presented with the United States Department of Commerce, is aimed at helping US exporters and investors target Asian markets, confirmed legal news in Asia.
The conference is taking place between April 7-8, 2014, and consists of 60 seminars about 18 major Asian markets. Surprisingly, One-on-One business counseling sessions with overseas U.S. Senior Commercial Officers from 18 American embassies in Asia are also taking place.
Southeast Asia opportunities webinar to immediately follow the conference
And the day after the conference, the U.S. Commercial Service in Southeast Asia will conduct a webinar . It will outline business opportunities available in South East Asia (Wednesday, April 9, 2014) at 10:00 – 11:00 AM (PDT or 1pm EST).
Asia’s economic opportunity
As the US Commercial Services outlines, “Southeast Asia’s population of 620 million is rough twice the size of the United States and represents a market with a combined GDP of more than $2.2 trillion. The ASEAN economies are continuing robust growth as nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 5.7 percent at US$ 2.31 trillion in 2012. And over the past decade, these countries have averaged a growth rate of more than five percent per year.”
“In 2012, U.S. goods trade reached some $198 billion, up from $145 billion in 2009. It made ASEAN the fourth largest U.S. export market and fifth-largest overall trading partner. Formerly, in 2011, trade in services with ASEAN countries exceeded $30 billion. It totaled exports of $19 billion and imports of $11 billion. This allowed the United States to achieve an $8 billion services trade surplus with ASEAN, the legal news in Asia.
However, U.S. foreign direct investment in ASEAN markets totaled more than $159 billion in 2011, confirmed legal news in Asia. It was led by investments in manufacturing, finance and insurance, and nonbank holding companies and those figures are growing. Indeed, in 2013, global foreign direct investment (FDI) into Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, known as ASEAN 5, outstripped FDI into China for the first time.”
Resources:
