Open For Business: Why recession doesn't spell the end for overseas entrepreneurs

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With great tribulation comes greater paradoxes, so you will be forgiven for mistaking boom for bust over the past few months. Truth is, the rate of start-ups has only been increasing.

Pretty bored of bankers now. Just because they don't do their jobs properly doesn't mean the rest of us can't get on with ours. The media would love to have us believe that the impending, slick thundercloud of recession is a forerunner to Armageddon, but don't forget, they just want to make a fast buck like the rest of us. Whatever worrying times may bring, don't succumb to their fatalism.

With great tribulation comes greater paradoxes, so you will be forgiven for mistaking boom for bust over the past few months. Truth is, the rate of start-ups has only been increasing, and after speaking to some of the UK's top entrepreneurs over the past few days, I have found that they couldn't be more optimistic either. It seems the only people currently suffering from this fiduciary mess are the very ones that got us into it. Instant karma.

Business, like finance, is based on confidence. It is the mutual faith that everyone understands what is going on when most of us probably don't have a clue. After all, confidence is just a trick. You need to be cunning and headstrong in the world of trade and service, or you end up chasing a profit instead of making it. The fact is, there is never a perfect time to start a business. Even the ascending heights of an economic boom cannot guarantee fortuity or success. The end of liberal capitalism may indeed be on the horizon, but the sun hasn't set on the corporate world all together. Far from it.

All this really spells is a remodelling of the financial system. It could end with Britain joining the Euro, or more likely the introduction of a globally uniform currency . Either way, a more harmonious, sustainable and collaborative way of operating is waiting in the wings, and this is the sentiment being advocated by experts and foreign government officials alike. There will be no more frivolity, no more money screaming to be lent, spent, cashed or flashed. Economies will simply be more economical.

But for the aspiring foreign investor, opportunity still presents itself all over the world. Whatever quagmire you may believe Britain to be irretrievably slumped in, there are other countries where opportunities are vast. The fundamental tenet of consumerism is giving customers what they want at the right price, and providing you exercise an astute business mind by researching markets, locations and competition, there should be no discernable disparity between setting up a foreign business now than, say, a decade ago.

The economic forecasts for countries in Asia and South America are not only staggering, but are set to be competing, if not superseding, that of the UK and United States in no time at all. These are countries basking in the boom. They may have been late to flower, but they will be the last to wilt.

So don't believe the hype; facts speak louder than speculation, and there is no reason why you can't join hundreds of entrepreneurs in sticking two-fingers up at the suppositions and nay-saying of the media.

Whatever you may have heard or read, the world is most definitely still open for business.