My favorite countries for overseas business on this list are Thailand and the Philippines. They both have the rare combination of decent infrastructure and reasonably decent, honest and pleasant people.
The next two would be Malaysia and Indonesia. Businesses operate reasonably well because they are mainly run by ethnic Chinese. But watch out for delays even if you think you are familiar with the Muslim holiday calendar-- you may run into holidays you didn't even know existed! Some companies may tell you that they work during Ramadan, for example, but actually getting anything done is an entirely different story.
The problem only gets worse if you do business in Muslim countries when the businesses are run by Muslims. Bangladeshis are generally sweet, gentle people and the closest thing in the world to those elusive moderate Muslims which everybody talks about but few seem to find. Many of their businesses have Indian management and are actually well-run but the infrastructure, while improving, is the worst on the India subcontinent.
India is so big and so diverse it is hard to make generalizations. In general, though, you will find those in the south and east to be gentle and pleasant at the expense of business efficiency. Those in the north and west have good business efficiency but make the Dutch and Swiss look generous by comparison. There is an old joke that copper wire was invented when two people from this region spotted and picked up a copper coin at the same time.
RE: Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia
I agree that these countries have budding infrastructure and educated workforce ( at least for a Christian country like the Philippines, I see it all over the place ). Also, in the Philippines and Malaysia, English is very widely spoken.
However one question comes to mind -— How do you find CORRUPTION ( e.g. UNDER THE TABLE DEALS ) in these countries and palm greasing? I found them to be quite rampant.
A little sarcasm there.
"All your stuff are belong to us."
The reality is Red China done stole all your intellectual property, technical and management know-how.
They got high-tech factories your FDI paid for.
The Chi-Coms can sell far cheaper -- they got 800 million desperate citizens to exploit -- and baring revolution (always a strong possibility) they will be killer competition.. maybe even literally if they deem it necessary.