Businesses lack useful information

Everyone agrees we are in the age of globalization. The only difference is that in the 1990s globalization meant China welcomed global businesses to set up beachheads in its coastal cities and reach into its heartland.

Today, the word also means Chinese businesses expanding outside China, to do more business by building their own offshore operations.

But unfortunately, Chinese companies going abroad do not get as much help at home as their overseas competitors and partners do. In one area, as I recently found out, help is particularly weak - information people may need to do business globally.