What will be the role for international entrepreneurs in China’s emerging 2-track economy?

China’s economic development is being pulled in two diverging directions as Beijing struggles to steer a course through this global recession. On one hand, collapsing international demand for Chinese exports has led policy-makers to stimulate the domestic economy with a massive state-directed infrastructure…

Read the rest of “China Economics – The Emerging 2 Track Solution and YOU” or post a comment >>

By Patrick O. Courtois

The Beijing Olympics have had a great impact on the city of Beijing, where a large infrastructure refurbishment initiative, fresh developments and a massive English language training campaign have been some of the elements of a drastic change and an amazing source of business opportunities for both local and foreign companies. Shanghai, with its upcoming Universal Exposition in 2010 is going through the same face-list, with the replenishment of the famous bund area, the accelerated infrastructure changes much needed to ease the megalopolis congestion problem and much more. Commercial opportunities are as well rising fast toward the May opening of the Exposition; opportunities that are being seized by both for local and foreign companies.

Read the rest of “Olympics STUFF for Beijing, Expo 2010 STAFF for Shanghai!” or post a comment

If there is one thing which most western companies coming into China miss out on is the idea of “trial spots”, or as they are called in Chinese 试点。

So what is it? Basically, it’s a city, place, province or region which is used to try out something experimental which has not been tried before. When China first opened up, Shenzhen was a trial spot for opening up the economy to foreign manufacturing investment.

Read the rest of “Understanding Trial Spots” or post a comment >>

By Patrick O. Courtois

I tend to receive a recurring misconception about the Chinese labor market from overseas-based clients. This misunderstanding primarily affects overseas-designed provisional staffing budgets as well as the perceived value of quality of China-based recruitment agencies. In short, agencies are perceived to attempt inflating candidate packages for higher fees. While some rogue agencies do, there is a distinctive trend that the cost of Chinese talent is catching up with international benchmarks.

China is an emerging Dragon, Shanghai, a crouching tiger…

China is an emerging and developing economy. At least, it is its official status according to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook Report, dated April 2008 Read the rest of “No Free Lunch in China” or post a comment

Nowadays, anybody arriving at terminal 3 of Beijing Capital Airport disembarks at one of the largest and most modern terminals in the world. Due to the immensity of the building, passengers are transported to their terminals with trains and there is a subway connection to the other terminals. The situation in Shanghai is slightly different. Here people are suspended above the city as they travel into Shanghai with an average speed of 430 km/h in the only open to the public, magnetically driven Maglev train in the world.  

Read more of “Centuries-old modernization” or post a comment >>