Blog about Virtual Assistant, Outsourcing, KPO, BPO and China

Hangzhou Bay Bridge, the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, opened to traffic on a trial operation at midnight following a grand inauguration ceremony Thursday afternoon. It is part of China’s efforts to boost economic integration and development in the Yangtze River Delta.

The bridge stretches 36 km over Hangzhou Bay and links Haiyan, Jiaxing to Cixi, Ningbo, in Zhejiang province, cutting the road trip by 120 km from Shanghai to Ningbo.

Construction of the six-lane link started on November 14, 2003, and was completed on June 26 last year. The bridge, with a 32-km section across the sea, is a cable-stayed structure built at a cost of 11.8 billion yuan ($1.69 billion) and allows a maximum speed of 100 kph.

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BPO, China Business News, China Economy China, Hangzhou Bay Bridge, Yangtze River Delta

EMC Corp, the world’s largest data storage company, set up a 50-50 joint venture with Hong Kong-listed Digital China in March this year, aiming to tap into the country’s booming IT market.

The new venture—EMC’s first in Asia—is expected to provide information infrastructure solutions, services and support for the Chinese market. It will also help the two sides to attract partners in the information storage sector.

EMC, by shifting to software sales over the years, has now become an information management company. It planned to invest $1 billion in China before 2012 to gain a larger share in the country’s data storage market as China has witness explosive growth in websites and internet content.

According to American IT research firm IDC, the total storage capacity in China will grow 30-fold from 132 petabytes in 2004 to nearly 4,000 petabytes in 2011.

EMC is also expecting the new venture to help serve the needs of its customers in China since Digital China, the country’s largest IT products distributor and systems integrator, has been trying to enhance its IT services business.

“This is about how we grow in the years ahead in China,” said Steven Leonard, president of EMC Asia Pacific-Japan. “China is now one of the world’s fastest growing and strategically important markets.”

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BPO, China Business News, Internet and Hi-Tech, Joint Venture China China, data storage, Digital China, EMC, IT, JV

The global leader of home appliance makers Whirlpool and Chinese conglomerate Hisense, a large electronics and information industry unit operating in such fields as household appliances, telecom, information, real estate and commerce, have set up a joint venture for consumers worldwide.

The 50-50 joint venture will invest about 900 million yuan ($129 million) in high-end washing machines and refrigerators production under the Hisense and Whirlpool brands.

The two sides will work together on capital management, research, manufacturing, procurement and global marketing. And the expected production capability is two million washing machines and one million refrigerators each year.

“The strong union of Hisense and Whirlpool will improve the structure of the Chinese appliances industry and prompt the research, development and manufacturing ability of Chinese companies to reach international levels,” said Huo Dufang, director-general of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association.

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BPO, China Business News, China Consumer Market, Joint Venture China China, Hisense, home appliances, JV, Whirlpool

Superstar Virgo, one of the largest luxury liners in the Star Cruises fleet that measures 76,800 gross tons with 935 guest rooms able to accommodate 1,870 passengers, has received over 700 bookings for its planned maiden cruise via east China’s Xiamen City on May 8.

It is the first luxury liner to take tourists from China’s mainland directly to international waters. Before this, mainland tourists who want to take ocean-going cruises have to go to luxury cruise terminals in Hong Kong or Singapore.

Making its first call at Xiamen on the eastern coast of Fujian province on April 11 with over 1,600 overseas tourists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Canada, Singapore and Australia, Superstar Virgo will altogether make 25 regular calls at Xiamen at 1 p.m every Thursday and return to Hong Kong at 10 p.m on the same day till October.

Wu Mingfa, marketing manager of Star Cruises, said that Xiamen is an ideal port for international luxury liners to tap the huge market potential across China’s mainland, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions as well as Taiwan.

The World Cruise Shipping Industry predicts the number of cruise passengers in Asia will rise 40% from 1.07 million in 2005 to 1.5 million in 2010, which is made possible in part by Asia’s growing affluence and improved flight options to regional port cities.

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Powered by the booming economy and high stock investment returns, the net profit of publicly traded Chinese firms soared 49.7% on average in 2007.

According to the Shanghai Securities News, net profit of the 1,574 companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges totaled 949.7 billion yuan ($136 billion) last year. Their revenue climbed 25% to 9.45 trillion yuan, taking up 38.3% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and earnings per share grew 39.7% to a record high of 0.42 yuan.

China’s GDP witnessed the fifth straight year of double digit growth of 11.9% last year. In the mean time, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index nearly doubled.

In spite of such negative factors as slower export growth, tightening monetary policies and the worst winter in more than five decades, Li Feng, a Galaxy Securities analyst, foresees a no lower than 30% growth in the first quarter corporate profits of listed firms.

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BPO, China Business News, China Economy, Investment China China, economy, investment, listed firm, stock

Due to strong domestic demands, China’s motor vehicle imports soared sharply in the first two months of this year.

From January to February, China imported 62,000 motor vehicles for $2.26 billion, up 82.6% and 93.4% respectively compared with the same period of last year. The growth rates were respectively 63.9 percentage points and 80.8 percentage points higher. In February alone, the imports were 33,000 vehicles, up 130%, the highest growth rate since January 2007.

Foreign-funded companies took up 67.4%, or 42,000 vehicles, of the country’s total imports in the first two months. And wholly-owned foreign firms imported 35,000 vehicles, up 96.5%.

Off-road vehicles made up for 50 percent, or 31,000 units, of the total imports, up 140 percent, while cars accounted for 39.6%, or 25,000 units, up 45.6 %.

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Automobile China, BPO, China Business News, China Trade Import Export China, import, motor vehicle