“Often an exporter with aspirations to grow will leap in because they’re too eager,” says Craig Michie, CEO of Taurus Trade Finance, a lender that provides working capital to SMEs. “We recommend getting all the advice you can before you sign up with an overseas partner.”

Cashflow is usually the main concern for smaller businesses. Michie advises getting a letter of credit where possible. “A ‘sight’ LC is the best way to ensure your exports don’t impair your cashflow,” he says.

In his experience, LCs are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain as overseas buyers use their powers of negotiation to force better terms from exporters. “That can leave small to medium exporters with 30, 60 or 90-day payment terms,” he says.

Often banks won’t step in to help an relatively unproven exporter or will demand a ‘bricks and mortar’ guarantee in the form of a director’s home or other personal property. “Assets such as this are not linked to a company’s trading cycle and are a poor response to exporters’ funding needs,” says Michie.

Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC) might be able to help you if your bank can’t provide finance or insurance cover, but other options are available.

Financing options
Taurus is one financier that can step in to help exporters. “We offer a service whereby we take on the debt from the overseas buyer and pay the exporter upfront,” says Michie. Taurus conducts initial credit checks on the overseas party and gains legal ownership of the export debt.

“We have exporters who make use of our service again and again,” says Michie. “For them, it’s well worth the fee we charge to ensure continuous cashflow.” Other exporters take advantage of Taurus’s facility until their export revenues are constant enough to go it alone.

Michael Cradock, director of Newcastle-based Morgan Cradock, agrees that some growth-focused exporters are too slow to acknowledge their financing requirements: “The important thing for us is to talk the potential exporter though the entire process, taking in every eventuality.”

Cradock offers consultancy advice to technology SMEs. “We look at how an enterprise is interacting with its potential market and make sure they understand their sales and growth objectives.”

This year, the country will double its LNG exports to 77 million tons, thrusting it to the top of the global per capita rich list. The International Monetary Fund has forecast growth of 16.5 percent in 2010, making it one of the fastest growth markets in the world and number one in the Middle East, far outpacing its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) neighbours. In such an environment, opportunities for canny exporters are plentiful and diverse.

Qatar may be small, but this cash-rich new kid on the block is determined to make its mark. That means spending strategically for sustainable growth. Outside the emirate, the growing presence of Qatari capital on the international scene is attracting much attention.

The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the country’s $75 billion sovereign wealth fund, weathered the recession with relatively few shocks, using the break to reassess and refocus. As the dust settles on the slowdown, the QIA, Qatari financial institutions and an abundance of private capital are all looking for interesting partnerships.

But spending at home is the key for potential exporters. The QIA is only one of many funds that benefit from vast budgetary surpluses. Other state investment vehicles dedicated to healthcare, education and stabilisation are also on the finance ministry’s pay list. The message from the ministry is to diversify this desert economy and to develop enterprise and society.

The government’s National Vision for 2030 focuses on human, economic, social and environmental development and is dependent on the continued influx of thousands of foreign workers, from unskilled labourers to experienced executives.

Much of the country’s estimated $35 billion in revenues for 2010 has already been earmarked for massive infrastructure projects that belie the recession elsewhere. Qatar is playing catch-up with more developed states in the region and has the growing LPG receipts to fund a vision in concrete and steel.

Development projects include the $14 billion Doha International Airport, which will have a capacity for 24 million passengers annually.

Add to this a massive port relocation project, new rail networks and the construction of entire new cities at The Pearl and Lusail, and the extent of the government’s infrastructure investment program becomes apparent.

Many Australian firms have already made their mark in Qatar’s construction boom. Last year, Victoria-based WWW Projects announced it would project manage the first phase of a $74 million deal to design, integrate and install the telecommunications and IT infrastructure for Ras Laffan Port, slated to be one of the world’s largest when complete.

The company is delivering cutting edge communications and security infrastructure for this key departure point for the emirate’s LNG-laden tankers.

Foreign expertise remains crucial to Qatar’s growth. “The country’s population has doubled over the last five years, mainly due to the arrival of skilled and unskilled expats,” says Kym Hewett, Austrade’s senior trade commissioner responsible for Qatar. “Today, around 80 percent of the population of 1.7 million is foreign.” The Government is keen to ‘Qatarise’ the workplace and young people are being trained to take the reins from foreigners in the future.

For the moment, however, there are simply not enough locals to manage and staff enterprises in this fast diversifying economy. Training and management skills will continue to command a premium in the years to come.