Market entry strategies of Chinese firms in rural China

Project Context

More than 200 million people in China live in extreme poverty, another 400 million people live in poverty. Since the 1990s, Chinese domestic firms have started to enter the rural markets. Yet, the challenges they faced and results they achieved are not well understood. In order to further explore how state-owned and private companies entered third-tier cities, small towns, and villages in China, the Emergia Institute has started a cooperation with Jianghua Zhou from the Chinese BoP Learning Lab at Tsinghua University.

Project Objective

The project aims to identify key success factors of companies entering the rural market in China. To that end, it analyses relevant case studies from 1995 until today with a focus on the different market entry strategies.  The case study portfolio includes both success and failure cases from the energy, consumer goods, agricultural inputs and telecommunication sector. Since local and central governments were often essential in opening up rural areas, public private partnerships will receive particular attention. 

Project Output

The results of the study will be presented to the academic community in 2010 in conferences and peer-reviewed journals. An expert dialogue is planned in Beijing to discuss the results with experts from business, development organizations and academia.