Building A Brand In China: A Western IFC's Tale

Three or four years ago, many offshore centres in the vicinity of the UK went on a 'charm offensive' in Asia, hoping to drum up business there and complete the surprisingly difficult task of establishing strong links between offshore centres on different sides of the globe. These efforts are now bearing fruit, as Kate Clouston, Deputy Chief Executive at Guernsey Finance, illustrates by referring to the experience of her own jurisdiction.

Guernsey opened its first representative office in China in 2007, a year in which China's economy grew 11.4% and was poised to overtake Germany as the world's third largest. To help put it in context, 2007 was the year when Apple introduced iPhone, the year after Facebook opened itself up to the wider public with 20 million users (as opposed to the 1.86 billion it hosts today), and Tony Blair was still Prime Minister.