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On May 20, Mexico and China reached an agreement on reciprocal promotion and protection of investments to tighten bilateral economic ties.

The deal, according to Mexico’s Deputy Economy Secretary Carlos Arce Macias, will consolidate a juridical framework more favorable for investments, and will provide juridical guarantee for investments and contribute to the increase and diversification of investments to attract more countries to invest in Mexico.

Meanwhile, it is expected to improve conditions for foreign direct investments, help attract more foreign productive capital and provide better conditions for Mexican investors.

The agreement will be signed in July during President Felipe Calderon’s visit to China.

We, Bpovia Ltd, would like to help you succeed in this promising econimic cooperation.

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Otis, an elevator company which accounts for 27% of the global elevator and escalator market, plans to invest an additional $100 million to triple its Tianjin plant’s capacity by 2012.

The plant, located in the Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA), currently has an annual production capacity of 50,000 machines and 20,000 elevators. With the additional investment, the TEDA plant will have a new automatic production line manufacturing high-rise elevators. With China’s market size reaching 3,000 units per year, China and the Middle East are two major markets for high-rise elevators.

Otis is now focusing its business in China, devoting its production capacity mainly to domestic consumption. In spite of the Chinese government’s curb on speculative investment in the housing sector, the country’s urbanization is still fueling the market’s growth.

Considering China as a market of strategic importance turning into both a huge consumption market and an efficient manufacturing base, Otis is also planning to expand investment in Chongqing, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Northeast China.

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BPO, China Business, China Business News, China Consumer Market, Investment China China, elevator, escalator, investment, Otis, TEDA, Tianjin

China’s trade regime has continued liberalizing since 2006, the WTO Secretariat said in a report following its second review of the country’s trade policies in Geneva.

Since the first review of China’s trade practices that obtained a good evaluation in 2006, plenty of China’s trade and investment reforms have been carried out to facilitate the country’s economic development. In 2006, China’s total trade in goods alone accounted for about 65% of its GDP and 13% of global trade. Moreover, China is still a major foreign direct investment destination. These reforms also speeded up China’s integration into the global economy.

This year’s review predicted that China—now the world’s third-largest trader, would keep fast growth in international trade with the help of its continuous opening up and ongoing reforms, though there are various challenges ahead.

China always welcomes foreign trade and investment from all other countries, and we—Bpovia Ltd is always ready to bear a hand in your successful business career in China.

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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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Chalco, China’s largest aluminum producer whose shares are traded both in Shanghai and Hong Kong, agreed last Friday to set up a joint venture with Malaysia’s MMC and the Saudi Binladin Group to build and operate an aluminum smelter plant in Saudia Arabia.

The plant is to be built in three stages and the total investment is estimated to reach $4.5 billion. In the joint venture, the aluminum producer Chalco will own a 40% stake to become the largest single shareholder. Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary-backed MMC will hold a 20% share while a consortium of local investors led by the Saudi Binladin Group will hold the remaining stake.

The smelter plant is to be located in the Middle East country’s Jizan Economic City (JEC), where electricity costs an average of $20 per megawatt-hour compared with $28 in the US and $40 in China for the same measure. The annual aluminum production capacity of the plant is expected to reach one million tons.

In addition, an associated 1,860mW power plant with an estimated $2 billion will also be built, in which Chalco will take a 20% stake to become the third largest shareholder.

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Great headway has been made by the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park in the past 13 years due to policies encouraging innovation and investment.

Built in May 1994, the park covers about 4% of Suzhou’s land and population and produces 15% of the city’s GDP, 25% of its foreign investment and 30% of foreign trade. It mainly targets capital-intensive, technology-intensive and flagship projects. So far, the industrial park has set up a comprehensive network to attract investors and ensure that the park secures multibillion-dollar projects.

Recently, the park has attached greater importance to projects that highlight science, technology and service.

It has approved more than 3,000 foreign-funded companies with total actual foreign direct investment of $13.4 billion. Its trade volume has grown to $56.7 billion. In addition, it has made over 10 policies to improve innovation and encourage investors to set up R&D centers. And plans encouraging IPR protection and aiming to attract skilled professionals have also been launched.

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BPO, China Business, China Business News, Investment China China, industrial park, investment, Singapore, Suzhou

According to the Ministry of Finance, the first electronic savings bonds of the year, worth about 30 billion Yuan, will be issued on May 16.

In 1994, China issued another variety of savings bond—the bearer treasury bond that has become a popular investment tool for the public and important channel for the government to raise funds for major construction projects. By comparison, the e-savings bond is more convenient for investors, such as interest will be paid by direct deposit into the investor’s account. The bond will be sold at branches of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and only to individual investors.

In addition, further e-savings products will be introduced.

BPOVIA Ltd will always be your business information source of China.

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Google and Chinese software company Kingsoft have announced a co-branding strategy on China’s online market— the launch of a web-based dictionary.

With this alliance, netizens can use Google’s translation service on Kingsoft’s popular English-Chinese dictionary software PowerWord that has estimated 30 million users. Moreover, Google’s web search and photo search services will be embeded in the new dictionary service, which will carry both Kingsoft and Google logos. According to Google, the two companies will share the online advertisements revenue.

It is a new approch of Google to compete with smaller local companies, such as Baidu.com on China’s online ad sales market and customer preference. This alliance will also help Google expand its user base in China and even make it a software client similar to Tencent’s QQ.

Since last year, Google has been making efforts to furthur fit into local market by partnering Chinese companies, like China Mobile, China Telecom. As a result, Google’s market share in China has grown by 0.9% in the first quarter of this year.

As a virtual assistant, BPOVIA Ltd is offering online service related to your business. If you have any needs, please contact us.

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China Business News, China Consumer Market, Internet and Hi-Tech, Investment China, Joint Venture China Baidu, Google, Kingsoft, online ad sales, PowerWord, web and photo search, web-based dictionary

Software giant Microsoft announced its plan to invest $280 million to build a research and development center in Beijing and significantly expand its research team in the country.

Microsoft started its first R&D center in China as early as 1995. And the company now has research facilities in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Last year, Microsoft invested about $280 million in its R&D activities in China and recruited 1,000 new employees to its China R&D Group.

At present, the company has 3,000 research staff in the country, with 1,500 full-time employees and another 1,500 working on a project basis. And it will double the number of its full-time research employees in China to 3,000 in the next three years.

The new R&D campus will be able to accommodate 5,000 employees, making it Microsoft’s largest research center outside the US when it is completed in 2010.

These investments are said to have helped Microsoft win support from the Chinese government and boosted sales in the Chinese market. Fortune Magazine estimated last year that its revenue from China would exceed $700 million last year, about 1.5 percent of Microsoft’s global sales.

China also has the world’s largest number of Internet and mobile phone users, offering what is believed to be huge opportunities for IT companies.

With the rapid development of the internet, BPOVIA Ltd based in China is always glad to offer our virtual assistant services to businessmen around the world looking for opportunities in the Chinese market.

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BPO, China Business, China Business News, China Outsourcing, China Virtual Assistant, Internet and Hi-Tech, Investment China Beijing, BPOVIA, China, internet, investment, Microsoft, R&D

According to official statistics, almost 480 of the Fortune 500 companies have made investment in China during the past 30 years.
From 1978 to 2007, the country’s total utilization of foreign investment exceeded $760 billion, ranking the first among developing countries and the second largest across the globe.

In 2007 alone, China’s foreign direct investment, which was less than $20 million in 1978 when the country implemented its reform and opening-up policy, reached $83.5 billion and outbound investment stood at $18.7 billion.

Furthermore, China’s foreign trade has also registered a rapid growth, soaring from $20.6 million in 1978 to $2.17 trillion in the previous year.

“By using both the markets and resources from home sand abroad, China has improved its international competitiveness remarkably,” an official said.

Given the promising domestic environment for investment, BPOVIA Ltd, with its professional team providing virtual assistant services, is ready at all time to facilitate our clients’ business process in China.

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