Mexican works as lubricant between China and Latin America
Writer: Chen Xiaochun | Editor: Jane Chen | From: | Updated: 2017-02-22
Luz Deneb Martinez
Email of the writer: 654789759@qq.com
Luz Deneb Martinez, a 31-year-old Mexican woman who came to Shenzhen three years ago to study Mandarin and had planned to stay for only one year, found herself captivated by this vibrant and modern city and decided to stay after six months’ study.
“I really like the city. It’s very nice, very new, very modern and vibrant. There are a lot of young people. I really enjoyed it,” said Martinez.
Working as an assistant manager in the Latin department of CW CPA, an advisory firm that has an office in Shenzhen, Martinez and her colleagues help Latin companies come to China.
“We are a CPA [certified public accounting] firm and we have the Latin department. We call it the Latin department because we are all from Latin countries,” said Martinez.
They facilitate the entire process of setting up a company in Shenzhen, Hong Kong or other parts of China. Once a company decides to start its China operations, Martinez and her colleagues will do all of the book-keeping, accounting, taxes, tax planning and auditing and start charging for all the services.
Apart from that, Martinez and her colleagues also help attract investment from Latin America to China, and vice versa.
“We don’t have offices in Latin America, but we refer them to government officials. For example, if someone wants to invest in Mexico or Argentina, we refer them to the right persons of Latin America,” said Martinez.
She is also in charge of marketing and PR in China.
“We work a lot with the consulates and chambers.” Martinez started contacting the Latin consulates around 2014. She visited each one of them in Guangzhou. “The consulates have different agendas and each country has a different priority here.”
Martinez and her colleagues try to accommodate the priorities of the different consulates. They offer some seminars for the delegations brought by the consulates on topics such as how to reach China and how to do business here.
“My work is like a bridge between Latin America and China. We want to help companies control the risk of their investments here,” she said.