The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China National Cereals, Oil & Foodstuffs Corp and Zhonghai Trust Co Ltd. Have launched China’s first wine trust project hoping to be fruitful in the tough global capital market. Different from other wealth management products, the unit of the wine trust is measured by the “barrel”, which contains 300 bottles of wine, with each investor limited to buy no more than two barrels. It is said by now the project has been more than double oversubscribed, facing only ICBC’s private banking customers and enterprise customers.

Facing the tough global capital market, banks are searching for investment alternatives. Wines are always with high investment values and could provide a more steady income it fits the quality of an investment alternative. To profit more and more banks are paying attention to the investment alternatives in the tough circumstance. China Minsheng Banking Corp, for instance, has launched a fund investing in fine arts. Industry statistics show that in the last 20 years, long-term invested well chosen wine portfolio could bring an annual return of 10 to 12 percent. And it is less volatile than stocks and shares, and not closely related with the stock market, no wonder it is more attractive to investors looking to diversify a portfolio.

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ICBC, Investment alternatives, tough capital market, wine trust

Facing the export surplus shrink, which is evident from the first-half Customs data, Chinese government may adjust the export policies to support the export business. It is believed that a proposal thrown by China National Textile & Apparel Council had been handed to the State Council, which suggested the tax rebate for textile materials will increase from 11 to 13 percent, and that of the garment sector will raise to 15 from the current 11 percent.

In June alone trade surplus shrank more than 20.6 percent, making it $5.5 billion less than the previous month. The total trade surplus in the first six months this year declined by 11.8 percent to $99 billion. Textile and garment export, the most seriously influenced sectors, declined by 4.2 percent year-on year to the slowest increase in five years. While for a long time the high trade surplus has been the top concern for economic policy. Exports contribute a large part to the overall economic growth. Influenced by the export slowdown, the total economic growth down to 10.6 percent, which is 1.3 percent below that of last year.

The tough situation draws attention from both the companies and policymakers alike. Recently Premier Wen Jiabao Vice-Premier Li Keqiang and Commerce Minister Chen Deming visited export-oriented provinces and visited enterprises, many of which were in the textile sector. These visits were seen as a sign for policy changes.

Last year, when the high trade surplus was the major concern, export tax rebate of many textile materials and garments were removed or cut down. Many favorable policies for them are also removed, because most textile manufacturing enterprises are energy consuming and may lead to environment pollution. Several months after the policy was put into effect, China’s textile companies are challenged by many other unexpected situations, including rising raw material prices, labor cost, the appreciation of the yuan and the slowdown of US economy. These make the industry association of urge for a policy change ever since April.

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export policy change, textile and garment export, trade surplus shrink, unexpected challenges

Yahoo, the second-most-popular search engine, released in a statement that it received a joint proposal from Microsoft Corp and Carl Icahn on July 13. (The later is an activist investor who controls 69 million Yahoo shares.) And it was given less than 24 hours to accept it, which is “odd and opportunistic” as Chairman Roy Bostock said. It also said Microsoft and Icahn made clear they would not like to negotiate the fundamental terms, which include the immediate replacement of Yahoo’s board and removal of top management. “It is ludicrous to think that our board could accept such a proposal. We will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders” Chairman Roy Bostock said in the statement.

Microsoft, which on May 3 withdrew an offer to buy Yahoo, made this latest proposal a few weeks before Yahoo’s annual meeting on August 1. Microsoft said last Monday it may renew talks for a deal if Icahn succeeds in ousting Yang and his board. Microsoft has been embroiled in on-again, off-again deal talks with Yahoo for six months. And it said it no longer wants to negotiate with Yang’s team.

The financial returns of the new proposal is not given a detailed statement, saying only that it was an improvement over an offer the software maker made in June but still carries less financial value and more risk than Yahoo’s current searching advertising deal with Google. But it added that Microsoft had again rejected its repeated offer to sell Yahoo for at least $33 per share. On that day Yahoo shares, climbing 1.3 percent this year closed at US$23.57 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Microsoft, which fell 20 cents to US$25.25 on Friday, has slipped 29 percent this year. But Yahoo had reported eight quarters of profit declines before Microsoft’s bid.

Yahoo said it was ironic that Icahn, who had previously urged the company not to sell its search business to Microsoft, was now supporting a proposal to do exactly that. And in the Wall Street Jouranal last week Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang accused Microsoft of wanting to disrupt the web search company. He also said it would be “a bad choice” for Yahoo shareholders to trust Icahn.

Bostock. Concerning this proposal Bostock said Microsoft not to engage with Yahoo’s management is “completely absurd and irresponsible”, “while this type of erratic and unpredictable behavior is consistent with what we have come to expect from Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders.”

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Carl Icahn, Microsoft, proposal, reject, Yahoo

According to the statistics released by the Customs, the export growth in June dropped by 20.6 percent to $21.35 billion, compared with that of May which witnessed a growth of 28.1 percent. Experts attribute the slowdown to the shrinking demand caused by the global economic slowdown and the increasing pressure on Chinese manufacturers because of yuan appreciation and high raw material cost. Based on this, it is estimated the export slowdown may continue in the next half of the year, forcing the government to reconsider certain export-related policies.

Some insiders said that the declining export growth is attributable to the rising labor and raw material costs, and the government’s tightening policies implemented since last year. And the global economic slowdown is making the situation worse.

The custom figures also show that the trade between China and India is increasing the fastest among China’s major trading partners. The bilateral trade stands at $29 billion, up 69 percent. EU remains China’s largest trade partner, followed by the US. And the imports of primary goods increased fast, which many be caused by the increasing price of the commodities in the international market.

An analyst with HSBC, said that the figures should raise people’s expectations on favorable government policies for export sectors. For example, the textile industry has called for a rise in export tax rebate. And Chinese government has since last years lowered or even removed the export tax rebate of some productions to curb the trade surplus. But some sectors are struggling as a result of a global slowdown, yuan appreciation and rising operating costs, hampering exports anyway.

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decline, export growth, labor cost, rising cost, slow down, slow export growth, yuan appreciation

Based on the current situation of the housing market, it is estimated that the sales of residential houses is to decline to the level 10 years ago this year. This is attributable to the economic uncertainties as a result of the global slowdown and the tight monetary policy at home, which draw forth homebuyers’ and investor’s wait-and-see attitude.

It is released in the latest report on Shenzhen’s housing market that the average housing prices in May declined 36 percent form the level of last October at 17,350 yuan ($2,540) per sq m to 11,014 yuan per sq m. According to the insider prices are expected to drop another 10 percent as some struggling small and medium-sized real estate developers and speculators are selling properties for cheap to maintain cash flow. And it is reported in some areas housing prices have already dropped 50 percent.

In the first half of this year, the total supply of new residential houses reaches 1.54 million sq m or so, 46 percent of that of the year before. Based on the situation, it is forecasted that another 3.5 million sq m residential housing area will be sold later this year.

It is generally believed that the tightening mortgage policy attributes great to the cool down of the overheating housing market, especially that in the Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, as the housing prices rising has been mainly attribute to speculation.

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decline, global economy, home sales, Shenzhen, uncertainty

As a novice, I have to confess that I was not quite familiar with the outsourcing industry before my being the member of BPOVIA. I only used to hear of the successful stories about Tata Consultancy Services Subsidiary from the business studies related books. The same as China, India is a developing agricultural country with a large population. Despite of its poor industry basic, The IT industry of India can reach the relatively high level of the world. Moreover, there are thousands of IT talents exporting to U.S and other European countries as the engineers every year. The southern city of Bangalore has become the center of Asian IT industry, which is also entitled as the eastern Silicon Valley. As the matter of fact, China has owned more advantages than India. For example, China has more university graduates, Chinese economy runs faster and smoothly than India’s. In addition, the social stabilities and invest environment in China is more appropriate than that in India.

After working in BPOVIA for sometime, I learnt something from the fields. Pondering about the reasons triggering the distance between China and India in the field of IT industry, we have to commit that India should fix a suitable approach for the development of domestic economy and improvement of the foreign trade. Since the rising of the cost of labor force, every developing countries should not only regard themselves as a world factory. On the contrary, they ought to spare no efforts to find a means to accelerate the framework of the domestic industry. Luckily, India trains thousands of IT talents, which only contribute to the software promotion, but also greatly foster the Indian economy from the low-cost world factory to a center of knowledge.

Being the member of the BPOVIA, what bring me most is the versatile crew and the high spirits of the working team. BPOVIA is the right one to try to help China to establish the similar market environment as India’s. Focus on the service on BPO, ITO, KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) and PPO (personal process outsourcing), it successfully avoids the low price competitions, but lead the industry to the quality and time-consuming competition. Both the manager and staff are fairly diligent and talent, graduating from various universities and distinguished majors. In order to trigger the boom of Chinese IT and outsourcing related industry, BPOVIA and other field leading companies should take the responsibilities to represent the image of the industry. Furthermore, both the government and the public should give the sufficient supports and importance to the development of such enterprises seeing that the successful experience of India’s.

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China. India, IT, Outsourcing

As the release of the fortune 500 companies list, the Chinese people are amazingly to see that there are 35 companies on the list (including the enterprises headquartered in Hong Kong, and Taiwan). With sales of $159.26 billion, Sinopec led the Chinese group at the 16th place, followed by State Grid, ranking 24 and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), 25. However, it’s easily to assert that the Chinese company, especially Chinese mainland company, the majority of those are state-owned companies and the business of them are concentrated on the realms of energy, financial and telecommunications.

US corporations occupied 153 places among the top 500, down from 162 a year ago, representing its worst performance in more than a decade. Japan had 64 firms on the list and France had 39, compared with Germany’s 37 and Britain’s 34. Moreover, there are 7 Indian companies also on the list.

Although we are glad to see that there are more and more Chinese firms emerging on the Fortune 500 list, but 19 out of the 35 listed companies are stated-own monopolized companies. Moreover, the business of those companies are relatively unitary.

After scanning the 2008 the Global Outsourcing Top 100, Accenture, Tata Consultancy Services and Hewlett-Packard are all ranked highly on the list. They are all worldwide joint-ventures, and their business is not limited by their major items. For instance, Tata is prominent enterprise located in Indian whose major business is iron and steel, and Hp’s laptops are shared a great reputation all over the world. But the outsourcing industry largely helps them to expand the scales of their business and make more profits for the head quarters, which contribute to the roaring revenues of the enterprises.

Infosys Technologies and Genpact are both the Top 100 Global Outsourcing companies and on the list of Fortune 500. On the contrary, most of the China mainland based companies haven’t put sufficient importance to the development of the outsourcing industry.

Outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. The decision to outsource is often made in the interest of lowering firm costs, redirecting or conserving energy directed at the competencies of a particular business, or to make more efficient use of land, labor, capital, (information) technology and resources.

Above is the definition of the outsourcing. It is a trend for the world to concern about the development of outsourcing industry. In addition, there’re more and more large-sized firms to start to run the outsourcing business in order to obtain more benefits from the competitive global market.

Owing to the great progress made by Indian companies, Chinese companies should reconsider their market strategy and try to build the business on outsourcing.

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Fortune 500, outsourcing industry

According to the recent news from China Daily, one of the Beijing based outsourcing company was awarded the China Best Outsourcing Provider during the 5^th China International Summit for Client Service. To better serve its multinational clients, the company opened branches and research & development (R&D) centers in the US, Singapore. On the purpose of tackling with the challenges raised by the appreciating of RMB and rising labor cost, the company moved to the city located in centre China, where it can enhance its R&D and service capabilities.

As the recent research demonstrates, each professional in Indian companies on average generates double the revenue of its counterpart in China-while the value create by each employee in US companies is among the highest. The leaves a wide space for Chinese software outsourcing firms to develop future up the value chain.

Thus, it’s a trend for the outsourcing companies to extend their business to other regions of the world. BPOVIA is one of the ambitious outsourcing companies planning to establish its branch in Chicago, Illinois. Besides, the staff from BPOVIA are all proficient, energetic and earnest. BPOVIA have the capacity for the tasks from data entry, office work to the tasks require more advanced skills like website design, graphic design, internet research, etc.

The opening of branch in other countries is one of BPOVIA’s strategic destinations. Owing to the wise choice, the foreign customs would contact with company more easily. In addition, it’s definitely a terrific opportunities for the firm to broaden the business and promote the popularity and image. What’s more, the chain company in other countries will help the custom to save the time and cost on the process of bargaining and negotiation, which would eventually help the customs to make more profits. By offering efficient and flexible service, clients can focus on their core business and gain a competitive advantage in the market.

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IT firm, outsourcing industry

Falling prices, discount offers and dwindling transactions, it seems that the real estate market is less attractive to individual buyers in China. On the contrary such a circumstance provides a good opportunity for the foreign investors to enter the market. It is said that some international groups have raised substantial capital for China property funds and are now developing the money, while others are moving capital from less vibrant markets in North America and Europe. Many international funds are also looking for mature properties in key cities, like Beijing and Shanghai.

Besides the local developer’s financing challenges also create opportunities for international investors. Due to the government policies aimed at limiting speculation in the residential property market, tighter monetary policy and the plummeting stock market this year, some less competitive real estate company get merged or acquired by the larger and wealthier developers. By June this year, the value of merger and acquisition deals involving mainland property has reached $15.29 billion which is 142 percent higher than that in the same period last year. And it’s harder for developers to obtain bank loans.

To raise money a lot of property firms offer initial public offerings. But as a result of the stock market plunge and global credit crunch, property security become out of favor. There are some small developers who would like to sell their projects and some listed real estate firms that acquired a lot of land parcel last year but find it hard to develop them now due to the credit crunch.

But the international investors should be cautious in conducting mergers and acquisitions, as the market is experiencing a shift from investment-orientated buying to self-use buying. And somebody thinks that compared with the company’s land reserve bought five years ago, the current price for mergers and acquisitions is not attractive enough.

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investment, merges and acquisition, real estate market, stock crunch

The new iPhone model makes its debut in the Asia-Pacific region today. In order to get one of the world’s first to grab the new-generation iPhone, fanatical Apple fans around Asia had queued up days before its launch, despite rain or freezing temperatures. By Friday, the line that had been had reached about 1,000 people. Signs went up that said the store had stopped accepting applications.
“This is the year that the cell phone becomes an Internet-connecting machine,” Softbank President Masayoshi Son told the crowd at the countdown ceremony. “Today is that day that will make it real, and it’s a historic day.” The iPhone is designed to browse the Web in much the same way computers do. The networks promoted by Japanese carriers, such as “i-mode” from NTT DoCoMo, are more closed than the Web. Such systems have allowed carriers to control services and charge fees.
A report from Japan said the iPhone’s had potential to change lifestyles and bring new business opportunities. Some people tend to spend an hour or more on daily commutes, and the iPhone could make Netsurfing more than reading or listening to music, it said. It is also said that the iPhone’s arrival could also change the relationship between manufacturers and carriers because of Apple’s clout. Up to now, carriers have had considerable leverage over manufacturers.
The celebration at Japanese carrier Softbank Corp.’s store, which included a digital clock display ticking away over the entrance, was part of a global rollout in 22 nations of the 3G, or third-generation, wireless connecting Apple Inc.’s much-hyped cell phone, an upgrade of the model that went on sale last year in the United States and several other nations.

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change, debut, iPhone, Netsurfing