This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives, and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias in Asia. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics which appear several years after the fact. Professor Philip M. Parker, the Chair Professor of Management Science at INSEAD, has developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias for those countries serving Asia via exports, or supplying from Asia via imports. He does so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models.

"Postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias" as a category is defined in this report following the definition given by the United Nations Statistics Division Classification Registry using the Standard International Trade Classification, Revision 3 (SITC, Rev. 3). The SITC code that defines "postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias" is 8924.

The countries in Asia considered in this report include Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners approaching the market in Asia face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias to Asia? What is the dollar value of these imports? How much do the imports of postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias vary from one country to another in Asia? Do exporters serving the market in Asia have similar market shares across the importing countries? On the supply side, Asia also sells to the international market of postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias. Which countries in Asia supply the most exports of postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias? Which countries are buying their exports? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers?

In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where Asia fits into the world market for imported and exported postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for Asia in particular, is based on a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. From there, each country represents a percent of the world market. This market is served from a number of competitive countries of origin. Based on both demand- and supply-side dynamics, market shares by country of origin are then calculated across each country market destination. These shares lead to a volume of import and export values for each country and are aggregated to regional and world totals. In doing so, we are able to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of both the value of each market and the share that countries in Asia are likely to receive this year. From these figures, rankings are calculated to allow managers to prioritize markets within Asia. In this way, all the figures provided in this report are forecasts that can be combined with internal information sources for strategic planning purposes.

After the worldwide summary in Chapter 2 of both imports and exports for Asia, Chapter 3 details the exports of postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias, but for each individual country in Asia. Chapter 4 does the same, but for imports of postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias for all countries in Asia. In all cases, the total dollar volume and percentage share values by major trading partner are provided. Combined, Chapters 3 and 4 present the complete picture for imports and exports of postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias to and from Asia and all other major countries in the world. Of the 150 countries considered, if a country is not reported here it is therefore estimated to have only a negligible level of trade in postcards, personal greeting cards, announcement cards, and decalcomanias (i.e. their market shares are close or equal to zero percent).

• 1METHODOLOGY
• 1.1OUR APPROACH
• 2ASIA'S SHARE OF THE WORLD MARKET
• 2.1EXPORTS FROM ASIA AS SHARE OF THE WORLD EXPORT MARKET
• 2.2IMPORTS IN ASIA AS SHARE OF THE WORLD IMPORT MARKET
• 3EXPORTS FROM ASIA
• 3.1EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• 3.2BANGLADESH
• 3.3BRUNEI
• 3.4CAMBODIA
• 3.5CHINA
• 3.6HONG KONG
• 3.7INDIA
• 3.8INDONESIA
• 3.9JAPAN
• 3.10MALAYSIA
• 3.11SINGAPORE
• 3.12SOUTH KOREA
• 3.13SRI LANKA
• 3.14TAIWAN
• 3.15THAILAND
• 3.16THE PHILIPPINES
• 3.17VIETNAM
• 4IMPORTS INTO ASIA
• 4.1EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• 4.2BRUNEI
• 4.3CHINA
• 4.4HONG KONG
• 4.5INDIA
• 4.6INDONESIA
• 4.7JAPAN
• 4.8MACAU
• 4.9MALAYSIA
• 4.10NEPAL
• 4.11SINGAPORE
• 4.12SOUTH KOREA
• 4.13SRI LANKA
• 4.14TAIWAN
• 4.15THAILAND
• 4.16THE MALDIVES
• 4.17THE PHILIPPINES
• 4.18VIETNAM
• 5DISCLAIMERS, WARRANTIES, AND USER AGREEMENT PROVISIONS
• 5.1DISCLAIMERS & SAFE HARBOR
• 5.2ICON GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC. USER AGREEMENT PROVISIONS