In the late 1990s it expanded its film business into China, an untapped market that then-CEO George Fisher saw as an enticing opportunity for growth.

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The lure of China's massive untapped market has only increased over time.

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ASEAN's GDP is less than a third the size of China, but the region is resource-rich, has a lot of untapped growth potential and represents a good hedge against political risk in China.

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Two decades later global investors, especially China and Russia, are eyeing its huge untapped natural resources.

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And the biggest untapped opportunity emerging markets like China are largely unwilling to pay a price premium.

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With Facebook reportedly looking at expanding into China and at monetizing its mobile app (an untapped resource even though the majority of time on the site is now spent on mobile devices) he expects its data-driven model to keep making money well into the future.

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Barely nine months after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001, I sat at a U.S.-China Business Council luncheon in Beijing featuring U.K. journalist Joe Studwell speak on his book The China Dream: The Elusive Quest for the Greatest Untapped Market on Earth.

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Mr Shih's estimate (not counting the untapped credit lines) would add another 34 percentage points to China's ratio of public debt to GDP.

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