Recently, foreign banks and other organization forecast that ODI (overseas direct investment) would exceed FDI. However, government officials suggested that it is unlikely to happen soon, especially this year. It is partly because Chinalco’s $19.5 billion didn’t succeed to save Rio Tinto last month, which is the world’s third largest mining enterprise.

Although Chinese National Petroleum Corp, working together with British energy giant BP, got the chance to develop Iraq’s biggest oilfield on Tuesday, it is still unlikely to raise dramatically ODI in 2009 because the past several months’ deals are made up of the large quantity of small volume.

A press conference in the morning of July 2 was hold by the Ministry of Commerce at the 13th China International Fair for Investment and Trade. ODI prospects are expected to be discussed at this fair.

“Although there are rising cases of ODI, the volume is still decreasing. This is because lots of cases are mall,” said Chen Rongkai, a division director at the Ministry of Commerce.

During January to March, ODI cases increase by 7% to 445, but the volume was down by a lot, said Caijing magazine. Ministry officials who did not reveal the figures told that to the magazine. We will soon see the first-half ODI.

The officials said the government would stage policies to stimulate ODI to seize the opportunities coming from the economic crisis.

In June, the government said it would cancel the curbs in foreign exchange from Aug 1 on companies that want to invest abroad with up to $30 billion expected to flow overseas.

In March, the commerce ministry said local governments had been increasing powers for supporting ODI.

“More measures will be carried out to encourage Chinese ODI,” Chen said.

Because of the financial crisis, many foreign companies want to sell assets and Chinese companies want to expand overseas. Many people forecast a increasing of ODI. They anticipated that it could even outpace the FDI, which has shrunk for 8 consecutive months. The trend would continue until early in 2010.

Standard Chartered Bank said in April that Chinese ODI could reach $150-180 billion this year, much larger than the FDI ($80-100).

Compared to last year, Chinese ODI almost doubled from 52.1 billion, while FDI was $92.4 billion.

Li Jianfeng, macro-economy analyst at Shanghai Securities, said: “ODI would not easily surpass FDI even though the FDI is not growing at present. ODI growth will be slow. ”

At the same time, protectionist and national security barriers will make it difficult for Chinese companies to plan large scale overseas investment, said industry insiders.

Li Jianfeng pointed out that ODI brings benefits to reduce the growing pressure of china due to the increasing foreign exchange reserves and to internationalize the yuan.

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The patron of the organization was the Ambassador, Sir William Ehrman. It was supported by the British Embassy, UK Trade & Investment, each of the British Chamber of Commerce in China, British Council, China-British Business Council, Confederation of British Industry, and 48 Group Club. The department of European Affairs of the Ministry of Commerce also joined in both the judging and the award ceremony.

Recently appointed Chairman of the BCCC, Nigel Clark said, since the establishment in 1993, the Chamber has been operating in Beijing for nearly 25 years to represent and promote the interests of their members as well. He also noted that the best of British has been staged on the ceremony and expressed it as the celebration of the close ties between China and Britain.

Are you interested in the business opportunities in China?

China is one of the world’s great growth markets and is likely to be for many years to come. Foreign companies often face difficulties in assessing Chinese market demand and enacting effective strategies because of the language barriers, culture differences, and high expense.

BPOVIA is the leading virtual assistant and Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) service provider in China. BPOVIA is the only virtual assistant company ever been nominated for the prestigious “Red Herring 100 Asia” Awards 2008. Combines international perspective with local know-how, BPOVIA can provide our clients China business development service and help our clients doing successful business in China.

Please visit http://www.BPOVIA.com/ for details about our service.

• Most services provided by BPO vendors are offered on a fee-for-service basis. This helps a company becoming more flexible by transforming fixed into variable costs. A variable cost structure helps a company responding to changes in required capacity and does not requisite a company in investing in assets and hereby making the company more flexible. Outsourcing may provide a firm with increased flexibility in its resource management and reduce response times to major environmental changes.

• Another way in which BPO contributes to a company’s flexibility is that a company is able to focus on its core competencies, without being burdened by the demands of bureaucratic dictate. Key employees are herewith released from performing non-core or administrative processes and can invest more time and energy in building the firm’s core businesses. The key in this lies in knowing, which of the main value drivers to focus on – customer intimacy, product leadership, or operational excellence. Focusing on one of these drivers may help a company create a competitive edge.

• A third way in which BPO increases organizational flexibility is by increasing the speed of business processes. Using techniques such as linear programming is a way to reduce cycle time and inventory levels, which reduces a company’s slack. Supply chain management with the effective use of supply chain partners and business process outsourcing increases the speed of several business processes, such as the throughput in the case of a manufacturing company.

• Finally, flexibility is seen as a stage in the organizational life cycle. For instance in the case of Nortel, which used to be a very rigid and bureaucratic organization, BPO helped to transform the company from a bureaucratic organization into a very agile organization by means of BPO. A company can hereby help maintaining ambitious growth goals, which do not fit with regular incumbent strategies. BPO therefore allows firms to retain their entrepreneurial speed and agility, which they would otherwise sacrifice in order to become efficient as they greatly expanded. It avoids a premature internal transition from its informal entrepreneurial phase to a more bureaucratic mode of operation.