cover image Doing Business in China: How to Profit in the World's Fastest Growing Market

Doing Business in China: How to Profit in the World's Fastest Growing Market

Ted Plafker. Business Plus, $24.99 (292pp) ISBN 978-0-446-57896-7

Plafker, a Beijing correspondent for The Economist, maintains the same restrained, reasonable tone as his employer magazine in this refreshingly informed guide to navigating the business landscape of the world's most populous nation. Behind the gleaming new airports, Gucci boutiques and teeming modern cities, Plafker argues, lie a host of (sometimes expected, sometimes not) pitfalls: frequent power outages, endemic corruption, lawless roads and severe pollution. Plafker also helpfully debunks common myths about China (spoken Chinese isn't all that difficult to learn; businesswomen may find gender is less of an issue than the fact that they're foreign), drops plenty of statistics and figures (in 2005, China imported goods worth $101 billion more than it exported) and rounds out each chapter with a bulleted list of key points. Written in accessible prose, Plafker's book is a great starting point for those thinking about setting up shop in China.