Clearly, our physical and cultural proximity with the United States means that our companies turn more easily to that market. Going to China or to Europe brings them a genuinely additional complexity. They are less familiar with the market or the language. Procedures in China take much longer and political guidance is required.
That last point brings us to the need to have a strategy. We see it in the missions to China that we organize: if our missions come with that guidance, doors open much more easily because that is part of the culture of the country. Without that guidance, the obstacles are bigger.
Similar constraints do not exist when we are doing business in the United States. The context is completely different, meaning that the funding needed to support the companies will not be the same. The guidance will be different, as will the assurances and guarantees that we will provide to companies because we will be focusing on markets that are a little riskier, such as Latin America or elsewhere.
That is where the plan B becomes important, in my opinion. We cannot just base ourselves on what we are doing at the moment and tell companies that we are going to change our markets. We are going to have to open more doors, to negotiate and to have more of a presence in the other markets we have neglected in previous years.
We are also going to have to make sure that programs are coherent. The plan B will be essential here. We will also have to pay attention to what happens in the very short term. SMEs may perhaps have problems with liquidity, or may not be in a strong enough position financially. We will have to be flexible and to provide a degree of latitude for some things.
We will certainly be able to look at those issues in more detail.