Foreign investment migration firms entering the Chinese market, broadly speaking, follow one (sometimes two) of three business models: Targeting clients directly (B2C), relying on partnerships with local immigration firms for client-flow (B2B), and developing business with chiefly institutional partners. Making the wrong choice often spells disaster.
Few firms can afford to ignore the Chinese investment migration market which, for at least 15 consecutive years, has been the world’s largest. The question, for most, isn’t whether they should penetrate the Chinese market, but how they should go about doing so.
The three prevailing models are:
§ B2B
§ B2C
§ Institutional
We’ll get into the details of each model in a moment but, first, let’s clarify some of the terminology used for foreign firms in the Chinese market:
“Program-side firms” (项目方): This is the term the Chinese use for those foreign firms who either directly or nearly directly interface with the government’s processing bodies (think Caribbean CIUs or Malta’s MRVA). Firms that fall into the group include accredited agents (who directly deal with the processing body), real estate developers (who tend to deal with processing bodies indirectly via accredited agents), or large international RCBI firms who have extensive networks of accredited agents. This is a diverse group, but what they have in common is that they are at most one step removed from the governmental processing unit.
