HSK – PICC P&C eyes global top 5
Saturday, May 28th, 2011China’s largest general, non-life insurer, PICC Property and Casualty Limited (PICC P&C), is striving to become one of the top five global insurers by premium volume in the next five to ten years, according to a top official of the company. Related readings: China Unionpay, Ping An sign strategic co-op agreement China’s insurance premiums hit [...]
learn mandarin – ‘No discrimination’ over China contracts
Friday, May 27th, 2011A public procurement sign in Chinese beside the gate of a wholesale market inYichang, Hubei province. [Photo/China Daily] SHANGHAI - Set amid lush foliage, and only a short stroll from the Bund, the city’s landmark,HASSELL China’s headquarters building in Shanghai looks more like a tranquil resort than an officecomplex. The relaxed atmosphere inside the spacious open office, well lit by natural light beaming through tallglass windows, belies the hectic pace of a flourishing design studio run by Australian designer PeterDuncan. An old China hand, Duncan, managing director, Asia, of the Australian design firm, has beenworking in China for more than 20 years. Although he has built many connections in this ”highlyrelational” society, he admits, his Chinese has remained ”elementary”. His connections, nevertheless, have helped open doors,enabling him to land many government projects. “I don’t seediscrimination against the foreign in government tenders,” hesaid. That is a reassuring statement to many foreign suppliers andcontractors who are keen on securing a share of the hugegovernment procurement pie. A recent study by the European Union Chamber ofCommerce in China estimates that China’s publicprocurement totals $1 trillion, or 6.8 trillion yuan, a year - about 20 per cent of the total economy. But the report adds to rising complaints from major trading partners that foreign companies arebeing treated unfairly in China’s huge and rapidly growing public procurement market. Efforts by foreign companies to secure Chinese government supply contracts are actively supportedby their respective governments. For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited China in2010 and market access was number one on her list of discussion topics with the Chineseleadership. Duncan and some other foreign business people who have been working closely with their Chinesepartners and clients have a rather different perception. They say they suspect the perception of”unfairness” stems from a misunderstanding of the rules and the less obvious nuances of doingbusiness in a different culture. Duncan says that the experience of his company in China can help ease foreigners’ concern aboutthe complicated rules. As one of the largest planning and design consultancies in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region,HASSELL began undertaking projects related to the Chinese mainland from Hong Kong back in theearly 1990s. The catalyst for expanding the business came in 2003 when it established a WhollyForeign-Owned Enterprise and launched the first working studio in Shanghai. “We won our first government bid through an invited international design contest in 2003,” Duncanrecalled. Involved in many commercial projects beforehand, HASSELL has gained experience and areputation in architecture interior design and landscape design, and therefore was ”recommendedto take part in the competition”, said Duncan, even if ”we did not know specifically anyone from thegovernment”. HASSELL, along with other tendering parties, was given three months to fulfill a draft design for thenew town of Ningbo, a fast-growing city in East China’s Zhejiang province. “Like in all cases, the government always included both international firms and local institutes totake the bid. Still, all we do is focus on our design and not get distracted by anything else,” Duncansaid. After winning the contest, HASSELL and a consulting company were appointed by the Ningbo UrbanPlanning Bureau to develop urban design principles to guide the expansion of the city to the eastencompassing a new urban core and a surrounding 39-square-kilometer urban precinct. Duncan can be forgiven for forgetting the exact number of government programs HASSELL hasundertaken over the past eight years. As its large-scale urban planning projects sprawled acrossthe country, Duncan estimates the figure is ”up to hundreds”. In late 2008, China launched a 4-trillion-yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package that generated a largevolume of procurement projects. Commerce Minister Chen Deming said 2009 was a year when 55 percent of the 12,439 tenders forprocurement of electromechanical products went to foreign enterprises. “China has followed stricttender rules to ensure a level playing field for both Chinese and foreign companies,” Chen said. Foreign enterprises’ complaints are mainly focused on issues of intellectual property rights andmarket access, including government procurement and indigenous innovation. Initially, in order tobe considered ”indigenous innovation”, a product must have had a trademark that was owned by aChinese company with full ownership of the product’s intellectual property (IP) in China. But in April 2010, the country modified the rules so that ”a product would be eligible for indigenousinnovation accreditation as long as the applying party has exclusive rights to the product’strademark in China and is licensed to use the IP in China”, said Wang Zhile, director of the researchcenter under the Ministry of Commerce. For instance, the Joint Venture Changchun Bombardier Railway Vehicles Co Ltd (CBRC) wasawarded by Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co a contract to supply 306 MOVIA metros forShanghai’s Line 9 and Line 7, said Marie-Lucie Spoke, director of Canada China Business Council’sShanghai office. Another testimony to foreign firms’ engagement in China’s public procurement projects is theQinghai-Tibet Railway, where the diesel locomotives used on the Golmud-Lhasa section were madeby General Electric, and Bombardier Sifang Transportation (BSP) made carriages on some trains. When asked the secret of winning contracts from the government in China, Zhang Jianwei, presidentof Bombardier China, said Bombardier’s success lies in the excellence of its technology, quality andservice, not in maintaining government relations. “With our sales, we do not use agents or middlemen. We do not even have a government relationsposition in our China organization,” Zhang said. Government offers in China also takes the form of co-sponsoring pilot programs. Criticism of China for allegedly favoring local industry at the expense of foreign companies has gonetoo far, according to Sandy Cutler, chief executive of Eaton, the US industrial conglomerate. “There might be some political pressures inside China to favor local companies when awardinggovernment contracts, but this is not the same as saying that the climate is acting to discouragecompanies based outside China,” Cutler told the Financial Times. Tong Zhiguang, former vice-minister of commerce, told China Daily in an earlier interview that ”whatmakes the foreign companies really uncomfortable and unhappy is the growing competitiveness ofChinese enterprises”. Duncan echoed Tong’s remarks. He believes the Chinese market has created an equal footing forsuccess, and the only difference is perhaps the increased competition. “I would say the business environment here is even more open than in some other places. Beinghere, working here, the very existence here in China is important. In this intense market, we have towork hard and be wholly focused on our designs,” said Duncan. Learn Chinese, Learn mandarin, Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About Chinese characters, News in Chinese, [...]
learn Chinese online – China’s 2011 trade surplus may drop to $100b
Thursday, May 26th, 2011China’s trade surplus may drop to around $100 billion in 2011, the China Securities Journal quoted a central bank advisor as saying in a Monday report. Related readings: China reports bigger trade surplus China’s April trade surplus stands at $11b China says not seeking substantial trade surplus with US China to see trade surplus in [...]
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