New facilitators and additions within Nordic business/trade networks in Asia

Newsletter 01 - Baltics/Nordics-Asia Business Bulletin

You are truly welcome to this Baltics/Nordics-Asia Business Bulletin! This format allows essential business news, topics and themes to be presented in brief, along with case stories and market insights in blog format. Expect some hot-off -the-press news combined with insights and business promotion – within the context.

The debut newsletter edition puts the spotlight on some new Nordic business networks and opportunities for Nordic organisations to enter and to get support from peers in Asian markets.

There are two new Nordic business organisations in Indonesia, and for those wishing to tap into China’s massive retail market Nordic Hub China facilitates with full services on the ground.

Assistance to succeed on China’s retail market

On 19 June Nordic Hub China – a trading and service platform for Nordic lifestyle products on the Chinese market – opened its third ‘Nordic hub’ in the city of Ningbo, overlooking Hangzhou. It is one of Hangzhou Bay Greenland global commodity trade hub’s (and also a modern lifestyle real estate project) biggest partner.

Earlier, Nordic Hub had officially opened phase 1 in Shanghai in November 2018, expanded with a second branch in Jinan and has a fourth in the pipeline for Harbin. The showrooms are located in Chinese major cities to ensure brands to have maximum presence in the Chinese market.

Project Manager Vincent Yu explains that this Hangzhou trade hub, the fifth global commodity trade port of Greenland Group in China, is positioned as an international business display platform.

“Integrating the elements of international fashion lifestyle, diversified business aggregation and leisure shopping experience, it will create a new business model by integrating shopping, catering and lodging.”

He also explains why this became the choice for the third Nordic Hub: “Hangzhou is the provincial capital and also the centre of politics, economy and culture of Zhejiang province. It is not only a famous tourist place, but also an industrial city, in particular in light industries, and considered as the most important manufacturing base and logistics hub in province. The economy of Hangzhou is well developed. Since the implementation of the reform policy and opening up of the economy, Hangzhou has made significant progress in developing its foreign economic relations and trade, which plays an important part in its economy.”

Associated with over 500+ retailers and distributors all over China, Nordic Hub and its sister companies Scandic Sourcing and Scandic Foods Asia (Scandic Far East group) offer a full range consultancy service package including market investigations, import service, back-end support, warehousing and showroom. A wide range of products such as food & beverage, cosmetics, furniture and many other products that are related to Nordic life style are catered for.

“Scandic Foods Asia and Scandic Sourcing work as a partner, assisting our industry clients to get started or set-up operations and then follow up with value added services as long as it’s necessary. They provide outsourced services for logistics, human resources management, financial accounting and interim management and takes on supervisor and board roles. Nordic Hub China, meanwhile, focuses on fast-moving consumer goods, F&B, arts and crafts and design, and provides the full package of market entry and match- making services,” says Vincent Yu.

This setup in fact enables brands and companies from the Nordics to enter the Chinese market without going through the process of setting up one’s own local company.

“Nordic Hub China can provide a local Chinese sales representative, while you can still send your own sales representative or hire a local representative.”

“We support all import-related activities, from documentation to legalization of goods and logistics; we facilitate pick-n-pack warehousing; we provide product exhibition and sales service in our 550 sqm Showroom for Nordic lifestyle experience and trading; and we host and arrange events all over China, such as in-store events to promote and drive traffic to our client channels.”

Clients can also get assistance in building infrastructure and finding partners, including setting up online store presence.

Nordic Hub also produces reports on development, statistics and market change. Alongside its cooperation partners this provider has assisted multiple companies to enter China; from small start-ups to high profile brands.

“We are continuously looking to widen our selection of Nordic products and support Nordic brands.”

Klaus R. Nielsen is GM for Nordic Hub China, while Chelsea Li is GM for Scandic Foods Asia. Both companies are part of Scandic Far East Group where Per Linden is Chairman.

Finally a trusted network for Nordic companies in Indonesia

Moving on to Indonesia, a Nordic chamber of commerce has actually been founded. NordCham Indonesia, with offices in both Jakarta and Singapore, was launched through a networking event in September 2019 in Jakarta, upon having reached a critical mass of starting members.

For the launch event representatives of the Nordic banks Nordea and SEB had flown in to attend, along with representatives from Innovation Norway, Business Sweden as well as Nordic embassies.

“After some initial market research, we realized that there was a lot of interest and demand for a strong Nordic chamber of commerce providing actionable information and professional networking events,” says its Director Mr Magnus Ramstad Dahl.

“We have close to 50 corporate members from all Nordic countries except Iceland and are growing fast.”

H&M, Atlas Copco, Scania, Oriflame, Neste, Ericsson, Jotun and Carlsberg are among its Gold Members.

At the inaugural event Knowledge Partner, Kevin O'Rourke held an insightful presentation on the root causes and history of corruption in Indonesia. This was precisely in line with the focus for NordCham Indonesia’s activities: providing in-depth information and a trusted network.

“Our members get access to some of the best reports on developments in the Indonesian market and access to our Knowledge Partners with different industry expertise to help them make sounder business decisions.”

“Many of our members are executives coming to Indonesia for a relatively short time frame. So we have therefore created a Knowledge Database with information, handbooks, and links that can help a new country manager hit the ground running.”

By logging in members can also access the archive of shared past reports.

“Members also get access to a large network of Nordic companies in Indonesia as well as Nordic individuals working for Indonesian conglomerates,” Magnus added.

“Other than our regular sector and market update events, I would like to highlight the NordCham roundtable events. These are regular Chatham house rule meetings where executives in Nordic companies get together to share insights and discuss developments in the Indonesian market. Understanding what's going on in Indonesia is a bit like solving a puzzle, different people see the market from different angles and when you bring all the puzzle pieces together you can get a pretty good understanding of what's going on in the market.”

When it comes to promoting Indonesia for investment they leave that to the Nordic Trade Promotion offices such as The Danish Trade Council, Business Finland, Business Sweden and Innovation Norway.

Readers are welcome to reach out to via [email protected] or visit www.nordchamindonesia.com

Nordic Business Council being set up on Bali

A new Nordic business organisation being set up on Bali is of even more recent origin; in fact so fresh that its name is yet to be confirmed. However, the first preliminary meet took place on 23 June, attended by about 50 people mostly representing their own business and a few private Balinese individuals that will support their relations with the Balinese government forward.

“For sometime this has been discussed between a few Nordic friends in Bali as well as the Swedish/Danish/Norwegian and Finish business community in Jakarta who today already cooperate in what is known as Nordic Business Forum. The thought was that the communities in Bali would not be large enough to set up separate organisations for each respective Nordic country; hence we decided to do a structure covering all nationalities,” explains one of the founders, Terje H Nilsen, a Bali resident since 2004.

The new council will be registered in Bali, but with the aim at covering the whole of Indonesia. A board will be operational and duly registered within July. For the time being it is hosted on the premises of Terje’s own business Seven Stones Indonesia, a provider of business consultancy and advice within real estate and tourism.

“We are working on plans to soon offer office space to the expat and Nordic community as well, so it might continue to be based at this address.” 

“There is a variety of Nordic businesses and people on Bali, including Living Food Lab, Gateway school and some real long-runners. We knew there were some long-term players in Bali but got surprised how many it actually was. I believe these and others provide valuable impact and this is what we see as our goal: to grow valuable impact investments in Bali and other areas of Indonesia.”

“We believe there is massive joint knowledge out there that we could all benefit from and give each other support. The Nordics tend to have similar mindset and values and we believe we can educate our own communities and Bali’s business community going forward. We wish to be a bridge and enhance further investment from Nordic countries to Indonesia - and from Indonesia to our respective countries as well. We wish to work closely with the Balinese government and communities to provide knowledge and technology, such as renewable energy, waste and waste water management, sustainable tourism and social/community programs tapping into each of our respective Nordic countries and embassies,” Terje, who was born in Norway but moved to Indonesia already back in 1993, comments further about its purpose.

Tanja Harjuniemi from Valuehammerers commented in Linkedin that she didn’t just want this new organisation to be just another business council among others – but to be the most sustainable business council in the world.

“What Tanja wrote is something we all agree about and wish to move forward with, knowing that all Nordic countries have exiting technologies addressing various eco aspects. We hope we can support Bali and Indonesia towards becoming a country known for sustainability and high community impact programs. Indonesia is already far down the lane addressing this and taking actions and I believe we can contribute with added value onwards to speed things up. There are already a few large Nordic companies established with projects happening in Bali, Flores and of course Jakarta.”

The founders have yet to take a final decision on the organisation’s name and it will then get its own web side and social media accounts. For the time being anyone interested can contact Mr Terje.

Footnote

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