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While many foreign banks are vigorously cutting jobs worldwide amid the US subprime mortgage crisis, they have largely held back the ax in the Chinese market.

UBS, one of Europe’s biggest banking groups who announced 5,500 job cuts worldwide last week, said that the process of reviewing and reallocating resources “will result in a minimal number of redundancies in the region (including China)”.

Posting a $3.6 billion fourth-quarter loss and planning to reduce its workforce by as much as 5% globally over the next few month, Morgan Stanley, the second-largest US investment bank, has not yet laid off anyone in China.

JP Morgan Securities Asia-Pacific, unlike its parent who has trimmed about 10% of its headcount worldwide, is expanding its workforce by hiring more people in the country.

And Citibank China, reporting a 99% increase in operating income, said they “will continue to invest, expand, network, and hire and train people here, because China remains one of Citi’s top-priority markets anywhere in the world”.

There are two major reasons behind the optimism foreign banks have about the Chinese market.

Firstly, China’s capital market is expanding. As China International Capital Corp Ltd’s Chief Economist Ha Jiming has said, “China’s capital market has great potential in several sectors, including investment banking services, wealth management services and innovative product creation, because China still largely needs to develop the stock market and the private equity market.”

Secondly, the derivatives market shrinking in the US is to take off in the country. As Fudan University professor Sun Lijian put it, “dwindling overseas investment opportunities for foreign banks and security firms may cause them to look more closely at China.”

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On Monday, May 12, at 2.28 p.m. Beijing time (6:28 GMT), a major earthquake, measuring 8.0 on the Richter scale, jolted southwestern China’s Sichuan Province. Several lower-scale earthquakes and aftershocks followed in the same area. The quake destroyed many buildings in the area, as well as infrastructure like communication towers.

According to the latest reports, 34,073 people have died and 245,108 have been injured. As authorities reach more remote areas, these numbers are expected to rise.

BPOVIA Virtual Assistant Team developed Joomla module, the joomla website administrators can easily install this module to show donations information and the visitor can click to donate to CHINA EARTHQUAKE RELIEF fund at American Red Cross.

You can download the module here:
http://www.bpovia.com/download/mod_donateSichuan.zip

BPOVIA Virtual Assistant Team

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Since May 12th when the powerful seismological wave traveled 2000 kilometers to shake our office building here in Nanjing, we have been keeping a close eye on development of the ongoing rescue work in Sichuan province, the worst hit area in southwest China.

The earthquake, the strongest one to hit China in 32 years, demolished buildings and trapped tens of thousands beneath the rubble. Up until now, the death toll has exceeded 19,500 by 4 p.m. Thursday, rising by more than 5,000 from Wednesday’s 14,463.

Rescue work has been proceeding with much difficulty due to landslides, telecommunication breakdown and continuous rainfall. And more forces in the country have been mobilized to join the rescuers who have been racing against time to find as many survivors as they could.

In the meantime, people from all walks of life in and out of China have been doing their utmost to help the country live through the hardship.

When blood is urgently needed to save lives of victims in the quake, blood donors all over the country are responding in droves. Long queues of people waiting to donate blood at mobile blood-collection banks can be seen here in Nanjing as well as in many other cities. And people have also been actively offering donations in cash or goods.

Besides, both domestic and overseas companies and organizations have been giving what they can to help victims of the quake. Donations in both cash and goods to the quake-stricken area had risen to 877 million yuan (125 million US dollars) till 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs has authorized the Red Cross Society of China and China Charity Federation to receive donations for quake-hit areas. The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) has received public donations of 311 million yuan and the China Charity Federation has received about 120 million yuan.

While ensuring the quality and timeliness of our services to all our clients, we are deeply concerned with lives of people still in danger in Sichuan. We hope that more people will join us in helping victims out there. If you are willing to offer help, here are several ways:

1. Account number for renminbi donation: 0200001009014413252, at Beijing branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

2. Account number for foreign currency donation: 7112111482600000209 at Jiuxianqiao branch of CITIC Bank.

3. Donation through post office should be sent to:
Red Cross Society of China
No 8, Beixinqiaosantiao, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100007
Its website: www.redcross.org.cn

4. Red Cross Society of China donation hotline: (8610) 65139999, 64027620

5. Chinese Red Cross Foundation also receives donations, which can be sent to:
No 53, Ganmian Hutong, Dongdanbeidajie Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100010

6. Account number of Beijing branch, Bank of China: 800100921908091001

7. Account number of Dongsinan branch, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China: 0200001019014483874

8. Account number of Beijing Chaoneidajie branch, China Construction Bank: 11001070300059000427

9. Account number for foreign currency at Bank of China: 800100086608091014

10. China Charity Federation hotline: (8610) 66083260, 66083264, 66083194

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At about half past two yesterday afternoon when we were working busily in our office at 40 floor, we felt the tremor of the building, or rather tremor from the earth. The entire building started to sway to and fro, back and forth, which brought us a strong sense of dizziness. Several minutes later, we managed to get down to the ground and joined the crowd waiting for the earthquake to calm down.

Fortunately, the quake died off about ten minutes later. When we went back to our office safe and sound, our technical team manager Jerry Xu was proud to announce that none of our servers, databases or company network infrastructureor was affected even in the slightest degree. “We have always regarded stability of our servers and company network infrastructureor as the top priority for our company. Only by guarantying this can we provide our clients with the most reliable services,” he said.

Hours later, word came that the epicenter Sichuan province in Southwest China had suffered gravely from the 7.8-magnitude quake. The powerful earthquake had claimed nearly 10,000 lives till this morning and most victims are in Sichuan. Hearing this tragic news, James Huang, our CEO and founder of BPOVIA Ltd, decided immediately to donate $1000 relief money to the disaster area hit by the quake. “Companies should not concern themselves with making profits only. Do something for the society is also necessary,” said James.

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