Decision analysis example

The common trend of the world nowadays is regional economic integration, which has taken place for a long time in European countries, under the name as European Union (EU) with 15 member countries, then in North America with North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) including 3 countries, and most recently in Southeast Asia with ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) including 10 countries. The abovesaid establishments of free trade areas were aimed at eliminating tariff and nontariff barriers, enhancing exchange relations of goods and services among member countries and nonmember countries. Products and services must be participated into a free competition, a positive factor of a market economy, without any protection from the government. In such economic context and environment, if an enterprise wants to enter foreign markets, its products and services must have reasonable prices, attractive designs and many features that meet demands and tastes of consumers. That enterprise must find to understand the import trend of a country, which rises or falls year by year, in order to forecast import evolutions in the longterm and in the shortterm, that is, it must conduct careful studies on import markets before working out their production plans.