Marco Förster

Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, specialist practice that provides multi-disciplinary foreign direct investment advisory and operational services to international businesses seeking to enter and expand their businesses as your partner for growth in Asia.

Founded in Hong Kong in 1992, Dezan Shira & Associates today, has more than 350 professionals based in its 34 subsidiary offices in China, India, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and its liaison offices in Italy, Germany, Dubai and the United States. The firm also has established alliance partnerships, with offices in Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asia’s complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their operations in the region. In essence, we walk clients through the entire process of Asian market familiarization, business planning, and corporate establishment, and provide post-establishment administration, financial, HR, payroll, and IT services.

We work both locally and regionally, to advise and assist with planning for clients operating in one or many local jurisdictions. Our experts deliver a blended service to clients, built on a methodology of confidential internal collaboration to enhance our extensive best practices and knowledgebase. This practice model provides clients with a concisely detailed and accurate view of current developments at the local and regional levels and across tax and regulatory matters.

Our Clients: 

Our clients are typically mid cap companies, including subsidiaries of listed corporations, smaller family firms as well as large MNC's. As such, we cater to both Fortune 500 players and Global 5000 clients, and increasingly serve rapidly growing entrepreneurial firms as well. We presently serve international clients from 70 countries, where 40% of our clients originate in North America, and 35% from throughout Europe. These clients operate in a range of sectors, including engineering, architectural services, construction, automotive, infrastructure, CTI and telecommunications, Consumer Goods and Services, e-commerce, import-export, light manufacturing, and business services. Our diversified clientele allows us to strengthen the knowledge base that we continue to use in assisting our clients do business across Asia.

Our Resource & Credentials: 

Dezan Shira & Associates is committed to improving the understanding and transparency of investing across Asia. We publish significant and well received business intelligence about each of the markets and disciplines in which it operates in through its publishing subsidiary Asia Briefing Ltd., which includes technical publications and highly rated websites concerning business investment in Asia, ASEAN, China, India, Vietnam and the Middle East. The firm also sustains an exhaustive business library on its own website. Also, we have launched targeted investor portals for Vietnam and China, to deliver curated resources to prepare our clients market expansions.

Marco Förster manages the International Business Advisory (IBA) unit of Dezan Shira & Associates (DSA) Ho Chi Minh City.

Within DSA’s IBA department, he mainly advises corporate investors on legal, HR, and tax compliance in Asia, with a specific regional focus on the Vietnamese market and South China.

Before his relocation to DSA Vietnam, he has been with the firm’s Beijing and Shenzhen offices for several years, as well as held the position of SME Forum Chair of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. Prior to that, he gained consulting experience at other advisory firms in Munich, Guangzhou, and Hanoi.

He graduated from Zhejiang University of Finance & Economics with an Economics degree and holds a postgraduate diploma in Digital Business from Columbia Business School (Executive Education). Marco speaks fluent German, English, Mandarin, and Vietnamese.