SAIC Global Strategy - like playing "Risk" with a round dice?

I was thinking that SAIC's choice of countries in which to market its cars seems a bit like choosing random countries to station your armies in "Risk" - China and the UK, yes, but then Chile and Belarus only.

I imagine the cars for Belarus have to cross Russia. Otherwise, they have to come in via another country such as Russian Kaliningrad, Poland or Latvia.

And presumably there would be big savings if sending a ship across the Pacific to say Mexico as well as Chile.

Brazil seems odd - of course IIRC there is only one country in the whole of South America that does not share a border with Brazil, but all the manuals will have to be re-written into Portuguese and the ships will have to sail round into the South Atlantic.

Do they have a round dice or is there more of a plan to it, I wonder? Are they just takling advantage of individual opportunities as they come up?

I suspect they are all countries with which the Chinese government has trade agreements and it has more to do with politics than anything else.

"Chile was the first non-Asian country to sign an Free Trade Agreement with China in 2005."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7737554.stm

None of them are exactly large automobile consumers though and NAC may well manage beter sales of their small trucks than of the MGs! In some of these countries the Truck sales have a head start which may be another factor in deciding where to sell.

patpending wrote:I imagine the cars for Belarus have to cross Russia. Otherwise, they have to come in via another country such as Russian Kaliningrad, Poland or Latvia.

Poland seems the obvious choice from that list

http://www.mguk.org/world-news-f5/mg-heading-to-poland-t207.htm#1624


Edit: On second thoughts, maybe they will be heading in the oposite direction

The global network is starting to link up...