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Businesses based in emerging markets are believed to take more risks than businesses in mature European markets when entering new markets and introducing new products by 44% and 35% respectively of respondents to an Atradius survey of Western European businesses.

Furthermore, a 33% of the survey respondents believe emerging markets businesses are able to develop more economic production methods, 31% believe they have fewer layers of management, 29% said they have more flexibility and ingenuity in their production methods.

Only 12% of survey respondents said that emerging market businesses employ better-skilled workers.

Respondents from Italy (63%) and Great Britain (56%) showed the greatest expectation of trading with emerging markets in 2011.

Overall, 42% of the EU companies surveyed anticipated doing business with 19 emerging markets this year. Exporting to emerging markets is the most widely expected action.

China is considered to be the most important emerging market for survey participants followed by Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic suggesting that in many cases ease of access to trade partners can play an important role in trade strategies of Western European businesses.

From a credit management perspective, the most important actions taken by survey respondents to reduce payment default risk in emerging markets include checking buyer’s creditworthiness (64%), monitoring buyer’s credit risk (45%) and checking buyer’s payment track record (43%). Thirty-five percent of the respondents insure their receivables.

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