On the 14th of June, OCO Global celebrated its 10 year anniversary with 50+ clients, partners and colleagues from Economic Development, Trade and FDI organizations, banks and universities. Despite labor reform protests that day, we managed to gather many of those who supported us in this past decade including Business France, Centre-Val de Loire, Burgundy, Lorraine, the Marseille metropolitan area and French representations of foreign agencies like JETRO, Swiss Business Hub and the Lithuanian embassy – a great opportunity to also speak about new collaborations!
During the reception, Mark and Laurent highlighted the key evolutions of the FDI and trade market since opening the office; starting with the economic conditions, the financial crisis in 2008, the rise and difficulties of the BRICS and the return of protectionism in many countries… to the corporate drivers and motivations to (still) go international, with the pressure on costs, flexibility and the search for “external economies” especially in R&D. Focusing on Western Europe, we insisted on both the fragmentation of the FDI market -in terms of sectors, activities, source countries and its polarization -in terms of destinations, with the 3 first countries accounting now for more than 55% of the projects respect to less than 45% 10 years ago.
The event was also an opportunity to connect with former OCO Global alumni Aurelie Albert, Lorenzo Pavone and David Cousquer, and the turnout and calibre of attendees was another reminder of the esteem that OCO Global is held in by its clients, partners and former colleagues in France.
