You work as an analyst in the planning staff of a multinational enterprise. In this and future research assignments, you will be asked by your manager to submit a report on different facets of international business.

He/she asks that these reports should be written in a manner that can be forwarded to senior management.

These reports should respond to the instructions from your manager.

Instructions: Your manager announced in a meeting that the planning unit has been given a project to report on the relative attractiveness of selected countries as potential sites for locating a manufacturing subsidiary. Currently your company has manufacturing subsidiaries in located in Mexico and China.

Business has grown to a point where expansion is necessary; the Mexico subsidiary is at capacity serving North and Central America, and the China subsidiary, East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Note that your company's products are best transported by containers on ocean going vessels. The focus of the project is where to locate an additional factory to expand coverage of Southeast Asia and South Asia.

This will include creating a subsidiary in that country, actively doing business in that country, and using the country as a base to serve the regions targeted.

Management has stated that they prefer a location in Southeast Asia, and you have been given the task of identifying the most attractive location, and to justify your recommendations based on regulatory areas in the country that affects business activity, attractiveness of the port location, and economic prospects of the county.