- China Unicom Revenue Up 7.6% In H1 2010 Chinese telecommunication operator China Unicom has published its semi-annual financial report for the first half of 2010, stating that its operating revenue reached CNY82.11 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%. Of the total operating revenue, CNY41.05 billion was contributed by the mobile businesses, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%; while CNY40.11 billion was from the fixed [...]
- China's Ministry Of Culture Issues Four Internet Cafe Cha... China's Ministry of Culture has published announcements on its official website stating that it has issued the first batch of four licenses for operating Internet cafe retail chains in China. The four companies that gain the netcafe licenses are T-Matrix, Beijing Zhonglu Shikong, Beijing Read China, and CECT-Chinacomm Communications. The issuance of the licenses represents [...]
- Internet Retailers Publish Honesty Declaration In China More than 1,000 suppliers, publishers, and Internet retailers, including Dangdang.com, Microsoft, Aigo, Wyeth, Lock & Lock, Commercial Press, and the People's Literature Publishing House, have jointly published an "Internet Retailing Honesty Declaration" in China. Under the declaration, Dangdang.com and its suppliers promise that following the basic principles of integrity, security, and responsibility, they will provide [...]
- Baidu To Officially Launch Software Search Service Tomorrow A representative from the Chinese search engine company Baidu.com has confirmed to the local media that the company's new software search service has been launched for beta testing and will be officially opened on September 2, 2010. Though Baidu.com has not provided an entrance link to this service on the front page of its official [...]
- Taiwanese Networking Equipment Provider To Establish Mobi... Taiwanese networking equipment giant AboCom System Inc. has announced in Zhengzhou, Henan, that it will invest CNY2 billion to establish a 3G mobile phone technology industry base in the city. Eric Ouyang, chairman of AboCom, revealed that the company signed an agreement with Zhengzhou High & New Technology Industries Development Zone for the establishment of [...]
- MediaTek $100 Android Phone is Coming, Game-Changing for ... On 12nd July, MediaTek whose phone chips and “Turn-key” (from chips to software design) solution has enabled hundreds of Chinese Shanzhai phone manufacturers to make phones easily, made an announcement saying that it joined the Open Handset Alliance and decided to play with Android market. One month later, in a talk with a friend from [...]
- Breaking! Tencent Acquires Comsenz and Becomes the Domina... Soon, you would see million of Chinese sites are Powered by Tencent (instead of Powered by Discuz!). Although the news has not been confirmed by both parties, it is today proved by the Whois information of Comsenz’s two domain: Comsenz.com and Discuz.net. Both domains are now registered under the name of Tencent Technology (Beijing) Company [...]
- Tips for Luxury Brands in Chinese e-Commerce Market Sales of luxury goods grew 12% in 2009, to $9.6 billion, accounting for 27.5% of the global market, according to Bain & Co. In the next five years, China’s luxury spending will increase to $14.6 billion, making it the No. 1 luxury market globally. In 2009, China overtook the U.S. to become the world’s second-largest [...]
- StartupsWatch Report (August Edition) Released This year, no matter what kind of discussion on innovation we have, it seems that people just cannot help but come back to a few key topics: microblogging, location-based services, group purchasing, the iPad, and mobile networks. Thus, it’s not surprising that in the space of one year we’ve seen a massive explosion in group-purchase [...]
- Chinese Microblogging Startup, Zuosa is Looking for Buyer Back to May 10, 2009, I asked Mr. Zhang from a Japanese investment company, CyberAgent for his opinion on microblogging service. (read the full coverage in Chinese). He said he understood the real-time information generated by this type of service would be very valuable data, but he doubted that most of the Twitter-like startups would [...]
- Tap Your Inner Bond Manager and Grade Your Finances
© Tracy O
Bond manager services have a creative, yet simple, way for rating a person's bond portfolios. They use letters A, B, C, etc. that are much like report cards you received in school--except you get much more money for A's here. It's a novel idea that can be easily applied to your personal finances. Using basic indicators like grades is a method everyone can understand, providing a more meaningful signal to how you manage your money and business investments.
First take a ...
- Venture Capital Markets Expanding in China
© Tracy OAs venture capital markets continue to shrink for the United States and Europe, emerging markets such as India, Brazil and especially China are seeing an expansion. Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association recently released their study which found that China and other emerging markets are set to prosper over the next five years, while venture capital will dwindle for the US, Europe and Canada.
The study was entitled the 2010 Global Venture Capital Survey and it was conducted by questioning 500 ...
- China's Changing Labor Scene
© Stas Kulesh
The China Law Blog had a good piece recently on how the labor scene in China is changing. It's not really an in-depth analysis; it's more of a statement of the simple facts...
A clear statement of the facts on labor in China seems necessary because China's labor scene really is changing. The stereotype of a huge Yellow Horde of cheap and abundant labor is still around as a stereotype - but it hasn't been true for a while now.
...
- Shanda's Investors Are Gloomy
We recently talked about the fact that game company Zygna had moved into China. So it seems appropriate to comment on reports that Chinese game giant Shanda is facing a drop in investor enthusiasm.
Xiaofan Zhang wrote back in April about problems with investor sentiment in China's gaming industry. He attributed the mood among investors to a slowdown in revenue growth, reduced profits and regulatory uncertainty in the online games industry in China (with the Ministry of Culture raising questions about some business ...
- Zygna Moves Into China
© sabrina.dent
I guess it was bound to happen eventually. US games developer Zygna (famous for Farmville and Mafia Wars) has acquired a Beijing-based social gaming company: XPD Media (see TechCrunch here and here, and Gamasutra).
China has been fertile ground for online social gaming and MMORPGs over the last decade. And the venture capital industry has invested a lot of money into gaming in China. Zygna's move into Beijing may have been unanticipated, but it's far from surprising.
Zygna has been expanding ...
- China's ZTE Makes U.S. Expansion With `Salute' Phone for ... ZTE Corp., China’s second-biggest maker of telephone equipment, is expanding in the U.S. with an agreement to sell a handset through Verizon Wireless, reported Thursday's Bloomberg.
- Anshan Iron & Steel Backs Away from US Deal China’s Anshan Iron Steel Group on Thursday backed away from a planned investment in a US-based steel mill after the deal was heavily criticised by US lawmakers, reported Thursday's Financial Times.
- McDonald's Sells Yuan Bonds in Benchmark for China McDonald’s, which opened its first 1,000 restaurants in China faster than any other country outside the U.S., sold 200 million yuan ($29 million) of 3 percent notes due in September 2013, reported Thursday's Bloomberg.
- Levis Launches New Global Brand, Aimed at China Jeans maker Levi Strauss Co. launched a new global brand in China on Wednesday, joining a growing list of companies that hope to crack this fast-growing and youthful market by tailoring their products to Chinese tastes, reported Wednesday's AP.
- NetEase Second-Quarter Profit Rises 3.8% as New Online Ga... NetEase.com Inc., China’s third-biggest online games provider, said second-quarter profit rose 3.8 percent after the company added players by introducing new titles and upgrades, reported Wednesday's Bloomberg.
- Euro zone retail trade grows by 0.1 percent in July Retail trade volume in the euro zone grew by 0.1 percent in July compared with the previous month, the European Union's (EU) statistical bureau Eurostat said on Friday.
In July, food, drinks and tobacco trade increased by 0.3 percent in the euro zone month-on-month, while the non-food sector rose by 0.1 percent.
The retail sales index gained 1.1 percent in the 16-nation euro area year on year.
In the 27-nation EU, the volume of retail trade in July increased by 0.1 percent from June and ...
- Euro zone retail trade grows by 0.1 percent in July Retail trade volume in the euro zone grew by 0.1 percent in July compared with the previous month, the European Union's (EU) statistical bureau Eurostat said on Friday.
In July, food, drinks and tobacco trade increased by 0.3 percent in the euro zone month-on-month, while the non-food sector rose by 0.1 percent.
The retail sales index gained 1.1 percent in the 16-nation euro area year on year.
In the 27-nation EU, the volume of retail trade in July increased by 0.1 percent from June and ...
- France sees recovery in tourism in 2010 France, one of world's top tourism destinations, estimates a better performance of the key tourism business this year after receiving higher number of foreign holidaymakers, a government official said on Friday.
"We can say 2010 summer showed a real out of the crisis following a 3 percent increase in French tourists and 10 percent jump in the number of foreign holidaymakers," said Herve Noveli, Tourism Secretary of State.
The lion share of tourists visiting the European country came from ...
- France sees recovery in tourism in 2010 France, one of world's top tourism destinations, estimates a better performance of the key tourism business this year after receiving higher number of foreign holidaymakers, a government official said on Friday.
"We can say 2010 summer showed a real out of the crisis following a 3 percent increase in French tourists and 10 percent jump in the number of foreign holidaymakers," said Herve Noveli, Tourism Secretary of State.
The lion share of tourists visiting the European country came from ...
- Burger King stops purchasing palm oil from SMART The U.S. second largest hamburger chain, Burger King Holding Inc., has canceled contract with palm oil supplier, PT SMART tbk., in Indonesia due to environmental concern.
Greenpeace has accused the PT SMART has operated by destroying rainforest where many endangered species live. The firm denies the accusation.
Burger King in the latest firm canceled contract following the similar act conducted by big buyers including Nestle and Unilever, Greenpeace said in a statement on Friday.
Greenp ...
- Relocation Costs from China to India and Vietnam Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Sept. 3 – One of the issues that crops up time and again in China is of course the labor law, which has had the effect of marginally increasing salaries, but more importantly, locking businesses in to retaining their workers. That’s a typical socialist political move – workers rights, and also suits [...]
- West China: Why FDI Should Consider the Region
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Sept. 2 – Following the conclusion of our series of articles about investing in China’s western regions, I believe that foreign investors would do well to look at these emerging markets in China. As sales markets in the United States and Europe remain stagnant following the global recession and growth remains slow, [...]
- New Foreign-managed Hotel to Open in Tibet
Sept. 2 – Beijing has approved the development of a new five star hotel in Tibet, the first to be developed there since the pull-out of the Lhasa Holiday Inn several years ago.
The hotel, to be built by listed company Tibetan Tourism, will be located in the remote town of Pai, in the beautiful Yarlung [...]
- China Industry: Sept. 2
Sept. 2 – This is a regular series of relevant industry news from around China.
Air transport
China Southern Airlines will commence additional flights to Australia from October 31. The company will boost the number of daily flights between Guangzhou and Sydney from the current one to two. China Southern will also start flying seven times a [...]
- New Special Economic Zone in Yili, Near Kazakhstan Border Sept. 1 – China has ratified a new special economic zone in Yili, in northwestern Xinjiang near the border with Kazakhstan. The area is already China’s only Kazakh autonomous prefecture, populated mainly by ethnic Kazakhs. The prefecture has a total population of four million with about 500,000 living in the city of Yining, also known [...]
- Talking about reform in China: Change you can believe in? The prime minister calls frankly for political reformCHINA is enjoying its new status as the world’s second-largest economy, but the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, is refusing to relax. During a visit to a southern boomtown he declared that economic gains could yet be lost without reforms to the political system. One official newspaper called his speech one of “extraordinary importance”, but sceptics abound.His remarks on August 20th and 21st in the city of Shenzhen have been compared by some optimists to those made by the late Deng Xiaoping during a tour of the same city in 1992. Deng’s calls for market-oriented reforms sent central-planners scurrying and unleashed the entrepreneurial energy that has helped China to grow at giddy rates since. During his trip Mr Wen laid flowers before a statue of Deng, who turned Shenzhen into a test bed for economic change exactly 30 years ago. ...
- Chinese banks: Circular logic Chinese banks are undergoing an odd kind of bail-outTHE banks of China did their duty by supporting the government’s stimulus efforts last year. Lending soared by a frenetic 32% in 2009; growth has slowed this year, but remains a robust 18%. Now the government is standing by the banks. A flurry of reports in the local Chinese press predicts that on August 24th Huijin, a branch of China Investment Corporation (CIC), the country’s sovereign-wealth fund and the holder of big stakes in all of its main banks, will issue the first of a series of bonds. Up to 187.5 billion yuan ($28 billion) should be raised in short order, with much of the demand coming from China’s state-controlled companies. These funds are expected to be used to support rights offerings by the big Chinese banks later in the year, as they seek to maintain capital ratios and protect against an expected wave of dud loans. ...
- World economy: The rising power of the Chinese worker In China’s factories, pay and protest are on the rise. That is good for China, and for the world economyCHEAP labour has built China’s economic miracle. Its manufacturing workers toil for a small fraction of the cost of their American or German competitors. At the bottom of the heap, a “floating population” of about 130m migrants work in China’s boomtowns, taking home 1,348 yuan a month on average last year. That is a mere $197, little more than one-twentieth of the average monthly wage in America. But it is 17% more than the year before. As China’s economy has bounced back, wages have followed suit. On the coasts, where its exporting factories are clustered, bosses are short of workers, and workers short of patience. A spate of strikes has thrown a spanner into the workshop of the world. The hands of China’s workers have been strengthened by a new labour law, introduced in 2008, and by the more fundamental laws of demand and supply (see article). Workers are becoming harder to find and to keep. The country’s villages still contain perhaps 70m potential migrants. Other rural folk might be willing to work closer to home in the growing number of factories moving inland. But the supply of strong backs and nimble fingers is not infinite, even in China. The number of 15- to 29-year-olds will fall sharply from next year. And although their wages are increasing, their aspirations are rising even faster. They seem less willing to “eat bitterness”, as the Chinese put it, without complaint. ...
- China's labour market: The next China As the supply of migrant labour dwindles, the workshop of the world is embarking on a migration of its ownTHE angrier they become, the less intimidating they seem. The strikes, stoppages and suicides that have afflicted foreign factories on China’s coast in recent months have shaken the popular image of the country’s workers as docile, diligent and dirt cheap. America’s biggest labour federation, the AFL-CIO, blames imports from China for displacing millions of Americans from their jobs. But in June its president applauded the “courageous young auto workers” who waged a successful strike at a Honda plant in Foshan demanding higher wages.While foreign unions cheer, multinational companies fret. According to UNCTAD, foreigners have invested almost $500 billion in China’s capital stock. Their affiliates employ about 16m people in the country. For a decade this combination has dominated global manufacturing growth, dispatching ever cheaper goods from China’s ports. Of China’s 200 biggest exporters last year, 153 were firms with a foreign stake. But the recent unrest has put Chinese labour at odds with foreign capital. ...
- China's financial markets: Premium puzzle Enthusiasm for Chinese companies abroad but not at homeOF THE many oddities surrounding Chinese stockmarkets, the most glaring has long been the premium mainland investors pay for shares listed domestically over what those same shares trade for in Hong Kong. Now the puzzle is why the premium has disappeared (see chart).The usual explanation for the existence of the premium ran as follows. A closed capital account and a tightly run financial system left Chinese investors with only three places to put their money: property, with its high transaction costs and manic price moves; bank deposits, offering diminutive interest; or shares, with price moves as big as property but lower dealing costs. That paucity of choices drove shares higher than in places with more options. ...