Yorkshire-based workplace safety equipment major Arco has announced plans to focus on India and China while economies in the West recover slowly from the effects of recession and credit crunch.
Based in Hull, the £220 million company considered a push into the American and European markets but decided instead to focus on India and China.
Joint Managing Director Nicholas Hildyard said: "We want to build our existing business to go from procurement to sales and distribution. These are two markets that excite us most. We have gained knowledge because we have businesses there already."
The company opened a trading branch in Pune in 2008, and has an office in Xiamen, a coastal city in the Fujian province of China.
Hildyard said: "We are selling products in India. We would like China to be the next step forward. But it depends on how the various world economies evolve."
Like most companies, Arco has been affected by the recession, but Hildyard said he was "quite pleased" with this year's performance, which follows a period of "massive, organic growth of 10 per cent".