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Business

Time to put Asia on the map

weekly roundup Very often, vendors will choose to break new corporate announcements first in the U.S.
Written by Eileen Yu, Senior Contributing Editor

weekly roundup Very often, vendors will choose to break new corporate announcements first in the U.S. or some European nation, before making their way to Asia. Even if it concerns a significant investment plan in an Asian market, like the opening of a new plant in China, these companies take pains to ensure the U.S. media gets the news ahead of the Asian press.

It's a common practice among many multinational corporations including IT vendors, and one that has annoyed me for as long as I can remember, but it's time these companies reconsider this strategy.

The British Empire and more recently the United States, may have been the economic superpowers of the 20th century, but the baton could very well be passed on to India and China in this century.

At the last tally, China has a population of over 1.3 billion while India boasts a population of some 1.1 billion. Together, the two most populous nations in the world are home to 37.1 percent of the global population. At 4.5 percent, the United States is a far 3rd placeholder, and the European Union collectively only accounts for 7.5 percent of the global population.

Not only do they have the world's two largest consumer markets, China and India were the world's highest-growing economies last year and will be the world's largest mobile phone markets by 2010.

It's time businesses wake up and put Asia, as well as its media, at the top of their priority list.

In other news this week, find out what still needs to grow up in Thailand and what's driving business process outsourcing in Asia. The 2008 Olympics gets up and running, and Singapore stands up for its IT leaders.

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