When public sector work nosedived as the austerity drive took hold, one company realised it would have to look elsewhere for the construction-based work on which its fortunes relied. The answer was clear – China.

Anthony Walker & Partners, the Newcastle-based firm of landscape architects, found its workload halved after the coalition scrapped a host of state school building projects in 2010.

Forced to close its Manchester office and cut staff from 24 three years ago to 10 now, it urgently needed new business.

Now, as it prepares to open an office in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Steve Laws, director and owner of AWP, says the Chinese market has become “almost an essential lifeline?.?.?.?the Chinese work has given us a light to work towards”.

If the UK is to raise its inadequate share of exports to emerging markets, more companies will also have to take the plunge.

Exports are a big coalition priority. George Osborne, chancellor, wants to double UK exports to ￡1tn a year by 2020. On current trends, emerging markets will account for 60 per cent of global output by the mid-2020s.

British exports were up 11 per cent to ￡50bn last year, including significant increases to Brazil, Russia, South Africa, China and India. But 70 per cent still go to North America, the EU, Japan and Switzerland, while fewer than 10 per cent go to the 10 largest emerging economies.

A FTSE 100 chief executive says: “I think businesses are being too risk averse, particularly around exports. With the level of sterling?.?.?.?you would have expected to see a bigger improvement in export activity.”

Taking the leap into emerging markets can be daunting, especially for small companies. There are differences in language and culture, as well as pitfalls such as avoiding Chinese counterfeiters. Mr Laws, however, has encountered more bureaucracy in the UK than China. “It’s very difficult for us to open doors in the UK. Sometimes public sector tendering is quite restrictive, [with] a lot of box-ticking.”

For Green Fuels, a Gloucestershire company that makes equipment to turn cooking oil into biofuel, the switch to exports has been dramatic.

The company, co-founded nine years ago by James Hygate, managing director, and his father, at first grew rapidly in the UK, where its equipment is used to make biofuel for the royal train and Prince Charles’s Aston Martin.

But in 2008 UK sales slowed. Now 85 per cent of its products are exported, including to Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Paraguay, Canada and the US. Turnover of ￡1.6m last year will be closer to ￡3m this year. “We are gearing ourselves up, though we are a small company, to be truly multinational,” says Mr Hygate.

One Midlands business has been beating the Germans, perhaps the world’s most formidable exporters, at their own game. Beakbane, a Kidderminster engineering company that makes equipment to protect machine tools from hot metal and oil, has increased sales 35 per cent in each of the past two years. Increasing its workforce by a third since 2009, sales last year were ￡7m. Although most production was for UK subsidiaries of machine tool manufacturers, Beakbane – which has hired a German-speaking export sales manager – increased sales to Germany by undercutting local competitors. “We’re competing with the Germans on lead times. They’re just too busy,” Mike Southwell, managing director, says [Company Registration].

One company has encountered pitfalls in selling to emerging markets. BGB Engineering, a Grantham-based electro-mechanical engineer, exports 95 per cent of its ￡25m turnover and is growing rapidly in India and China. But David T Holt, managing director and founder, admits finding it “strange” at first.

It has been a battle, for example, to get companies in India to accept its prices and to pay upfront. Indian importers tend to make large orders then pull out because they cannot get letters of credit, he says.

But, he adds: “If we can get them to understand the British way of doing things?.?.?.?I think we shall do very well.” Additional reporting by John Murray Brown. This is the second in a series looking at businesses finding ways to prosper in the most difficult economic climate in a generation.

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