Category News of China

Alibaba’s Yu’ebao becomes world’s largest money market fund

Alibaba’s Yu’ebao is now the world’s top money market fund with 1.2 trillion yuan (170 billion U.S. dollars) of assets in the first quarter this year. However, growth in interest rates hasn’t been expanding along with the size of the fund.

Data from Alibaba shows registered users of Yu’ebao reached 300 million as of the beginning of this year, and Yu’ebao’s total assets now exceed the size of the money market fund run by JP Morgan.

The annual return Yu’ebao is now paying is only around 3.9 percent, however, notably less than it has paid historically.

Still, as the returns are both stable and better than those offered by commercial banks, many investors are sticking with it.

Other factors leading to the popularity of Yu’ebao are that it is easy for users to manage, and that it has a low investment threshold with only one yuan.

An increasingly important point, however, is that the annual interest Yu’ebao pays is nowhere near as high as when it was launched.

The current interest rate on a Yu’ebao investment is down by almost 40 percent from its 2014 peak. Some customers are becoming skeptical.

However, the lower interest rates don’t necessarily mean that a Yu’ebao investment has no risks.

The main risks of money market funds come from interest rates and the liquidity risk. Once money market funds go into deficit, investors will want to cash out. Similar cases happened in 2008 financial crisis.

In fact, the overall size of China’s money market funds is falling.

Total assets of money market funds in China was 3.9 trillion yuan in the first quarter this year, down by 7 percent quarter-on-quarter.

Robots replace human labor beyond manufacturing bases

A robot arm writes calligraphy.

The smart technology leading to an explosive growth of robotic replacement for human labor has begun to flourish beyond the traditional manufacturing bases, but also in China’s service industry.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, robots have replaced humans in manual work in 5,000 industrial programs over the past four years in Zhejiang Province, involving investment totaling 500 billion yuan (US$72.5 billion).

Ling Yun, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Economic and Information Technology Commission, said that, by 2015, the usual manual labor pool has slimmed down by some two million workers.

Moreover, Anhui, Guangdong and Shandong provinces are pressing ahead with robotic substitutes in their cutting-edge industries where manual jobs for both men and women are being substantially reduced.

According to the Beijing Morning Post, jobs better suited to robots comprise the assembly of intelligent vehicles, firefighting and medical care, which all benefit from the employment of industrial data analysis, information technology and 3D auxiliary design.

The workshop of Shenzhen Rapoo Technology, facing a labor shortage of labor from 2005, purchased 75 robots in 2011, with immediate benefits in declining labor costs.

Nowadays, one of its computer keyboard assembly lines needs only five workers responsible for monitoring the automatic processing by the robots that have replaced an estimated 100 workers previously employed there.

The replacement has continued to prevail by moving from assembly lines to banking and logistics.

In 2015, China Construction Bank installed a number of robots to replace staff in its call center. Currently, STO Express, one of China’s leading privately- owned logistic companies, has adopted 320 robots to categorize deliveries in Linyi City, Shandong Province.

The robots can deal with 18,000 parcels weighing a maximum of five kilograms each every single hour at a high rate (often 100 percent) of accuracy. As a result, the labor force in the Linyi branch was cut by 80 percent from 150 to 30.

Despite the expansion of robots into the job market, experts have assured human workers not to overact to the smart automatic fashion as the trend can free them from the shackles of mundane toil for more complicated techniques and meaningful endeavor.

Wang Yamin, an employee from Guangdong Changying Precision High-Tech Co Ltd, said, that when the work she was doing was temporarily taken over by robots, she attended a two-month training enabling her to get a promotion to be a technician with increased salary.

“Currently, the robots, whose sensors remain weak, can only run in a certain framework,” said Ding Han, dean of the Mechanical Science and Engineering School of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

“The special robots have to complete their missions with remote controls,” he added.

According to NEKKEI’s Chinese news web, more and more young people receiving high education in China are not interested in repetitious manual jobs, which, in addition to the rising labor costs, are challenging the manufacturing competence of the country.

The advent of robots, which can be used for at least 10 years, helps the country, an economic locomotive in the world, sustain the momentum of economic growth.

Finance, real estate industries offer highest executive pay

Executives in the finance and real estate industries have the highest pay among 1,894 listed companies that announced their annual financial reports in 2016, said China Economic Weekly.

On average, executive pay packets hit 7.09 million yuan ($1.02 million) in 2016, up eight percent year-on-year, higher than the rate of China’s GDP and per capita disposable incomes, which were 6.7 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. Yet disparities are clear among sectors and companies.

Among the 18 sectors categorized by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, financial executives ranked the highest with annual pay of 27.36 million yuan, followed by real estate executives at 11.18 million.

The average pay for executives in educational companies was the lowest, just over 2.8 million yuan and about one tenth that of their counterparts in the financial sector.

The quickest growth in executive pay on average came from the hotel and catering sectors, at 47.58 percent. But top managers at companies in the fields of scientific research and technology services saw their pay decrease by 4.2 percent.

Executives at leading Chinese insurer Ping An snatched the highest pay at 108 million yuan, about 158 times higher than executives working for Puyang Huicheng Electronic Material.

Twenty-four companies reported their executive pay as being lower than one million yuan, and 1,033 companies put the figure between one million and five million. Ten companies announced that their executives were paid more than 50 million yuan.

Seven executives received pay above the 10 million yuan threshold. Lin Yong, an executive assistant at Haitong Securities, scored the highest pay packet at 15.49 million yuan. Ping An’s Chief Investment Officer Chen Dexian and Yin Ke, the former executive director at CITIC Securities, received pay packets of 12.86 million and 12.08 million respectively.

Wang Jie, the general manager of a Beijing-based investment company, said the higher pay for executives in the financial and real estate industries shows the imbalance in development in China.

Buyers’ interest spurs clean energy market innovation

As Chinese people are showing a growing interest in new energy vehicles, industry insiders are urging carmakers to make technological progress to remain competitive and calling for change in sales and after-sales policies to boost consumption.

Automakers are presenting 159 new energy cars at the ongoing Shanghai auto show, representing about 11 percent of all exhibits at the event.

According to a recent report from measurement company Nielsen, the popularity of clean energy vehicles is rising among Chinese consumers due to improvements in the cars’ performance and mileage.

The report, based on a survey of 2,307 respondents from the country, said 27 percent of car-buyers are considering purchasing purely electric cars and 25 percent are interested in plug-in hybrids.

This is the first time that electric cars have attracted more fans than plug-in hybrids since the annual survey launched in 2012.

Nielsen said electric cars available in the country had an average mileage of 164 kilometers in 2016 and the number has grown to 252 km this year.

However, the survey revealed that people expect on average a range of 374 km from electric cars.

The company said such expectations would push traditional carmakers to improve their research and development.

“It is one of the best times as a new sector develops; it is also one of the worst times as competition is extremely fierce. Carmakers must do their best,” said Olive Zhang, vice-president of Nielsen China.

Some traditional carmakers have released concrete plans.

German carmaker Volkswagen said electric models based on its current platform can achieve a range of 300 km and those on its MEB platform will double the figure. “Cars based on the MEB platform are scheduled to be localized in China by 2020,” said Jochem Heizmann, president and CEO of Volkswagen Group China.

New players continue to join the race. Within a year the authorities have approved 13 new energy carmakers’ plans to build their plants. Their combined investment stands at 26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) and their combined annual capacity will reach 760,000 vehicles.

Electric car startup NextEV is showcasing 11 models at the Shanghai auto show in the hope of getting a slice of the growing market.

China has been the world’s largest new energy car market since 2015. Last year, it sold 507,000 electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell models, 53 percent growth year-on-year.

The rise in their sales could prompt car dealers to change how they run their business, said Shen Jinjun, president of the China Automobile Dealers Association, at a new energy car meeting in Shanghai.

He said such cars differ from gasoline ones in that they need little daily maintenance, which is now a major source of revenue for gasoline car dealers. Shen suggested that the companies could consider shifting the focus of their business from car sales and maintenance to building experience centers.

Nielsen’s report shows that 60 percent of potential buyers would undertake online research, while about a quarter go to brick and mortar stores to see new energy cars and test-drive them.

Shen’s organization has been pushing for changes to the current car warranty policy, which was tailor-made for gasoline cars.

The warranty covers major components such as the engine and the gearbox, which electric cars do not have.

Tencent sees huge advances for AI in manufacturing

China’s manufacturing sector is set to climb the adoption curve of cloud computing and artificial intelligence this year, after the service industry reaped early gains from the internet, said Pony Ma, chairman of Tencent Holdings Ltd.

As new technologies cascade through markets, less productive business models will cede ground to more innovative ones which are streamlining business processes and optimizing supply and demand, he told a packed audience at a digital economy conference on Thursday.

“With initial strides being made in the service sector, manufacturing, which is the backbone of China’s economy, has begun heavily investing in the building blocks of the internet economy. Traditional manufacturers, rather than internet firms, are leading this wave of disruptive innovation,” Ma said.

Tencent, the gaming-to-cloud computing conglomerate, will play its part as “an infrastructure provider and a connector”, he added, by sharing its big data analytics, location-based services, artificial intelligence and payment solutions with industrial players.

As part of that initiative, Tencent is providing its cloud computing might to build an industrial big-data platform for Sany Group Co Ltd, the nation’s leading machinery equipment maker.

The virtual platform connects Sany’s existing 300,000 devices globally and uses predictive analysis to head off problems before they happen, according to He Dongdong, Sany’s senior vice-president. Through remote monitoring, malfunctions can be detected in real time and repaired within 24 hours, he said.

Ma told the conference that digitally-enabled innovation is likely to penetrate into the agricultural sector. Similar improvements are taking shape in the marketing and distribution of Tongwei Group, a feed and aquatic products maker.

Ma said it relied on Tencent’s WeChat service to pair supply with demand. The increased digital engagement, including the adoption of location-based services, also expanded the company’s reach and enriched customer interactions, he said.

Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Lenovo Group Ltd, said Chinese manufacturers are exploring ways to employ big data on inventories and shipments to improve product planning, and were banking on artificial intelligence to provide predictive analysis and self-servicing capabilities.

“Companies will realize broad productivity gains in their operations by automating processes, streamlining product development and digitally reinforcing their supply chains,” said Zhou Qiren, a professor of the National School of Development at Peking University.

Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei pool $15b rail fund to boost integration

Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province have set up a 100 billion yuan ($14.54 billion) joint railway fund to boost regional integration, authorities announced on Tuesday.

About 54 billion yuan, or 90 percent of the initial installment, comes from social capital with a time period of 10 years, according to Tianjin Daily.

The fund plans to invest 70 percent on inter-city railway construction, and the rest on land development along the routes.

Regional projects, including Beijing-Tangshan rail, Shijiazhuang-Hengshui-Cangzhou rail, and a second one connecting Beijing and Tianjin, which stops at Binhai New Area, will start construction this year.

Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Railway Investment Co, the lead coordinator of the fund, signed agreement with 12 financial institutions, including the country’s big five banks, Ping An Asset Management Co, and Capital Development Investment Fund Management Co in Beijing.

The fund is part of year-long effort by local authorities to renovate financing model in railway construction and attract social capital under market mechanism.

In all, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei will see an addition of nine inter-city rail lines by 2020, with a total estimated investment of 247 billion yuan, according to a notice released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Commute time between major cities and their surrounding counties will be significantly reduced.

China rolled out the integration plan for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei in 2015 to address urban problems such as traffic and air pollution and seek balanced development of the region.

Skoda debuts first electric car in Shanghai

Skoda CEO Bernhard Maier showcases the company’s electric car Vision E on April 17.

Czech carmaker Skoda Auto has unveiled its first ever electric concept car in Shanghai, declaring that electric cars will be a pillar of its development strategy.

The Vision E has a maximum output of 225 kilowatts and can run at a top speed of 180 km/h, with a mileage of 500 km.

The concept also features Level 3 autonomous driving, which means it can drive itself on express ways and park itself without human intervention.

The first of these electric cars will hit the market in 2020.

Skoda CEO Bernhard Maier said it will launch five entirely electric cars in various segments of the market before 2025.

In addition to the concept car, Skoda announced it will release an estate car, Octavia Combi, into the Chinese market later this year.

China has been Skoda’s largest market worldwide.

It sold 317,000 cars to Chinese customers last year, and Skoda plans to double sales by 2020 with its growing portfolio.

Skoda entered the Chinese market in 2007 and has since localized its models with SAIC Volkswagen. Statistics show that it has sold more than 2 million cars in China in the past 10 years.

Disposable income growth outpaces GDP growth in China

Chinese people’s disposable income expanded at a faster pace than economic growth in the first quarter of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

Per capita nominal disposable income of Chinese nationwide rose 8.5 percent in the first three months from a year ago, and per capita real disposable income after taking into consideration the effects of inflation increased 7 percent, outpacing the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 6.9 percent in the period, NBS figures showed.

Breakdown figures showed that urban residents’ per capita real disposable income grew 6.3 percent year on year in the first quarter to 9,986 yuan (about 1,452 U.S. dollars), while per capita disposable income of rural residents rose at a faster pace of 7.2 percent in the period to 3,880 yuan.

Other indicators released by the NBS on Monday, including fixed-asset investment and industrial production, pointed to stabilization in the world’s second-largest economy.

NBS spokesperson Mao Shengyong said the economy had achieved a rosy start this year and the income gap between rural and urban residents narrowed, laying a solid foundation to realizing its full-year economic target.

The government trimmed this year’s growth goal to around 6.5 percent from a range of 6.5 to 7 percent for 2016.

Integrity of workers, companies crucial in job-hopping era

The head of a human resources market research company in China has called for companies, based throughout the nation, to strengthen integrity management processes in China’s job market, as well as encouraged government officials to improve relevant laws and regulations.

Tian Yongpo, from the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, said “integrity at work is even more important in such an era with explosive information about jobs”, and added for example the mobility of Chinese labor forces gradually increased from 2010 to 2014.

Tian said, at a forum held by people.com.cn in Beijing on Wednesday, China’s floating population grew 12.65 percent, moving from 221 million to 253 million people, from 2010 to 2014.

“Huge information about jobs have accumulated during the process,” he said.

“Among explosive information, a problem will certainly arise about information transfer and distortion.

“As a result, our credibility at work is greatly influenced.”

His comments came shortly before a survey, published at the forum, which stated more than 80 percent of respondents said the credibility of Chinese workplaces were poor.

The survey collected information from more than 6000 people, as well as 3000 human resources managers, and was carried out by a website that helps companies investigate personal information, 17zhiliao.com, between March 10 and April 10, 2017.

More than half of the respondents to the survey believed dishonest behavior had resulted in a loss to companies and individuals.

Guo Wenlong, the deputy head for Labor Law Studies of Shanghai Law Society, said the “call for a law is natural since one could not get all the information he needs to (determine if a person in focus is credible or not).”

Guo went on to mention authority figures should improve laws and regulations on the non-competition agreement in the labor law, as the occasional employee has operated in a grey area to avoid company requirements and restrictions.

HR managers listed the worst behavior as missing job interviews, slacking off at work and even job-hopping.

Individuals overstating work performance and experience, as well as falsifying their educational background, were recorded as the most common dishonest behaviors to be seen.

To avoid hiring these types of candidates, 97 percent of HR mangers believed it was necessary to investigate the information job seekers’ provided during the early stages of recruitment.

More than 90 percent of job seekers agreed to the necessity of a background check; however, most people believed companies should seek the candidate’s approval before undertaking their enquiries.

Li Aijun, a law professor with the China University of Political Science and Law, urged companies to follow China’s rules, regulations and laws while undertaking investigations into personal information.

She cautioned the act of obtaining sickness records, property information and particular criminal history records, as these acts could become illegal after a certain point.

China FDI growth slows in March

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Chinese mainland rose 6.7 percent year on year in March, slowing from February, official data showed Thursday.

FDI reached 87.8 billion yuan (12.8 billion U.S. dollars) in March, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said in a statement.

The growth rate was lower than the 9.2-percent increase recorded in February.

Total FDI in the first three months of the year edged up 1 percent year on year to 226.5 billion yuan, the MOC said.

During the same period, 6,383 new foreign-funded enterprises were established on the Chinese mainland, up 7.2 percent year on year.

Most investment went to the service sector, which saw FDI expand 7.1 percent year on year in the first quarter to account for 73 percent of the total FDI.

Investment in utility services soared 165.6 percent year on year, while high-tech services attracted 28.7 billion yuan of investment, up 12.4 percent year on year.

Investment from the European Union grew 11.2 percent in the first quarter, the MOC data showed.

Last year, China attracted 126 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investment, the largest recipient among developing countries, data showed.