Category News of China

Wal-Mart Unveils Plans To Score Electronics On Environmental Sustainability

Wal-Mart has released criteria that will be part of a scorecard used to evaluate consumer electronics suppliers on the environmental sustainability of their products.

Starting in 2008, Wal-Mart will ask suppliers around the world to fill out the scorecard and buyers will have the option to use the scorecard results to influence purchasing decisions. The announcement reflects the larger company strategy to sell products that sustain natural resources and minimize impact on the environment.

“Wal-Mart believes that this scorecard will move electronics in the right direction¡ªa sustainable direction,” said Ross Farnsworth, divisional merchandise manager of home electronics at Wal-Mart during his speech at the ‘Take It Back’ conference in the United States. “The scorecard encourages improvements that are good for business as well as for the environment, reflecting Wal-Mart’s view that being a profitable and efficient business goes hand-in-hand with being a good steward to the environment.”

Next year, Wal-Mart will ask electronics suppliers to fill out a scorecard that will assess the sustainability of their product. The scorecard will evaluate electronics on energy efficiency, durability, upgradability, end-of-life solutions, and the size of the package containing the product. Products will also be evaluated on their ability to use innovative materials that reduce the amount of hazardous substances, such as lead and cadmium, contained in the product. The end result is a score that shows suppliers where improvements can be made and allows Wal-Mart to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the product.

“Many electronics contain hazardous materials and are disposed of improperly. The scorecard issues a better score to those suppliers who build products with fewer hazardous materials and offer electronics recycling opportunities to customers,” added Farnsworth.

Some suppliers are already integrating the metrics into their products. Currently, many of the computers and televisions sold at Wal-Mart are compliant with the Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) standards, including the popular Toshiba Satellite A55 laptop.

To encourage suppliers to start implementing the scorecard metrics into their products now, Wal-Mart is co-sponsoring an innovative design contest with the Green Electronics Council. Suppliers are encouraged to submit a consumer electronics product that puts the scorecard metrics into practice. The winner’s product will be carried in Wal-Mart stores throughout the nation.

As suppliers are encouraged to become more sustainable, Wal-Mart is continuing with its own sustainability initiatives in its Electronics Network. In February, Wal-Mart co-hosted a series of electronic waste ‘Take Back’ days. Together with Hewlett-Packard and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wal-Mart collected more than 140,000 pounds of old electronics for recycling from residents in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. In addition to the Take Back days, Wal-Mart offers year-round in-store recycling of cell phones and ink cartridges and encourages customers to buy energy efficient products.

ACFTU Officials Meet Female Workers To Celebrate International Women’s Day

March 8 is International Women’s Day and officials from the All China Federation of Trade Unions, led by Sun Chunlan, secretary general of ACFTU’s Secretarial Department, have visited female employees and female migrant workers to give their support.

The entourage visited Beijing Postal Administration Jianguomen Branch, Beijing Topnew Knitting Group Company and the subsidiary of Beijing Ba Fang Da Bus Company in Tongzhou district. ACFTU officials checked the working and living conditions of the women workers in those factories and units, expressed their thanks to them and congratulated them doing good work.

Sun Chunlan said women workers are the backbone of China’s industry and they have made great contributions to elevate their positions in society. She also said that the government’s work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at the National People’s Congress shows the care the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have taken in realizing the political status, democratic rights and economic benefits for women in China.

Sun expressed her expectations for all the workers, especially women workers, to further strengthen their sense of responsibility, continue studying and work hard to make greater achievements and contribute to the realization of China’s objective to build a rich society in all ways.

There are 19 staff at the letter sorting center of Beijing Postal Administration Jianguomen Branch, all of whom are female workers. Beijing Topnew Knitting Group has more than 800 migrant workers, and most of them are female. Nearly half of the 12000 migrant workers in Ba Fang Da Bus Company are women.

Following a decision agreed upon in 1910 at a Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen, International Women’s Day was honored for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. In 1977, the United Nations invited all member states to formally designate March 15 as International Women’s Day.

Johnson & Johnson Grants To Help Along Vietnam-China Border

UNIFEM, UNAIDS and Johnson & Johnson are together providing grants to organizations in five countries to address links between gender-based violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The grants will be provided by Johnson & Johnson through the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, a multilateral funding mechanism administered by UNIFEM. The Trust Fund became operational 10 years ago and has so far awarded some US$13 million to 226 initiatives in more than 100 countries.

The five new grantees include organizations from Botswana, the Dominican Republic, India, Nigeria and Vietnam. Each will pursue innovative strategies to raise awareness, uphold laws, provide medical assistance, train service providers and reduce stigma and discrimination to empower women.

In Vietnam, the Center for Reproductive and Family Health in partnership with Vietnam Women’s Union will receive the funds. Money will be used for improved care and counseling services and public outreach focusing on sexual health and rights will reach women and girls from ethnic minorities along the Vietnam-China border, with a focus on those who have been trafficked into forced prostitution.

“Violence against women and HIV are pandemics that deny women’s human rights and devastate individual lives and societies,” said UNIFEM Executive Director Noeleen Heyzer. “We welcome the opportunity to work through public-private partnerships to invest in innovative strategies. Scaled up, they can become part of national development strategies to achieve lasting change.”

The grants mark the second year of a partnership between UNIFEM and Johnson & Johnson dedicated to reducing gender-based violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS. The partnership supports initiatives aimed at reducing gender-based violence to lower rates of HIV/AIDS among women and strengthens efforts to reduce violence that prevents HIV-positive women and girls from seeking justice and obtaining treatment and care.

The partnership was facilitated through the UNAIDS-led Global Coalition on Women and AIDS, of which UNIFEM is a member. The coalition has identified ending violence against women as a priority for lowering women’s vulnerability to HIV and improving their access to health care.

Globally, violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of HIV/AIDS: women facing violence within intimate relationships often cannot negotiate safer sex practices, such as condom use. Rape and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation also spread the virus. In addition to untenable levels of stigma and discrimination from the community, women who test positive for HIV are often subjected to physical abuse from partners and can face eviction from their homes. Further, as a result of such stigma associated with HIV/AIDS, they are prevented from obtaining life-saving medical care and treatment.

Jobless rate among young a key concern

SHANGHAI will create 500,000 new jobs this year for laid-off workers, unemployed youth and those living in the suburbs, city officials announced yesterday.

The government said it plans to keep the registered unemployment rate below 4.5 percent this year, and will provide internship opportunities to 30,000 jobless youngsters.

Last year, 663,000 jobs were created across the city, surpassing the government’s target by 163,000 positions.

“Although we fulfilled our goal last year, we should notice that unemployment among young people is becoming an increasingly prominent issue in the city,” said Sheng Zuhuan, a spokesperson for the Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau.

More than 143,000 students will graduate from colleges and universities in the city this year, an 11 percent increase from last year, which should add to pressure in the job market.

About 49,000 of those graduate come from vocational colleges, and they will likely face the most difficulty finding work, according to Shen Xiaoming, director of the Shanghai Education Commission.

“With the growing supply of university graduates, it does pose a greater challenge for the city to tackle the unemployment problem among young people,” Shen said.

The city government plans to set up training programs for 5,000 college and university graduates this year, in order to equip them with stronger vocational skills.

Each of the trainees will undergo tailor-made training at local companies and enterprises during their studies.

Expat drive

THE Shanghai Personnel Bureau plans to attract another 20,000 overseas professionals to work and start their own business here over the next five years, bureau officials said at an international human resources conference yesterday.

Volunteer Recruitment For 2008 Olympics Launched In Shanghai

Shanghai Municipality has formally launched its recruitment drive to find volunteers for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Yu Biao, director of the Shanghai Youth Volunteer Department, says that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games will recruit 800 volunteers in Shanghai, 700 of whom will work for the football matches held in Shanghai and the remaining 100 volunteers will go to Beijing to serve at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the Paralympics Games.

Yu says that Shanghai citizens have become more and more fond of taking part in volunteer work. He says that for every ten people that ask to volunteer, only one person is chosen for these types of events.

Shanghai citizens can log onto the website of Shanghai Youth Volunteer to submit their application to be a volunteer. The search for qualified volunteers will last until March 2008.

Chinese Medicine Manufacturers Punished For Disobeying GMP

Guangdong Bioyee Pharmaceutical Company and Hainan Kangliyuan Pharm Company have been punished for violating related provisions in China’s Good Manufacture Practices and their GMP licenses have been revoked.

China’s State Food and Drug Administration says the two companies have been punished after a GMP audit in December 2006 revealed problems. SFDA has asked these two companies to recall related medicines and for the Guangdong Provincial Food and Drug Administration to further investigate the issue.

Bioyee is a pharmaceutical company which produces blood products, and Kangliyuan is a manufacturer of freeze dried powder for injections, capsules, pills and other raw materials for manufacturing medicine.

During 2006, SFDA conducted audits on 24 pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the GMP certificates of 13 of those companies were revoked, nine companies were asked to make changes, and two others were put under investigation.

In 1998, China’s State Drug Administration first decided that all pharmaceutical manufacturers must meet GMP standards and obtain GMP certification before June 30, 2004. They then reissued the GMP regulations in 1999. In April 2003, SDA was renamed the State Food and Drug Administration. Although SFDA authorized provincial drug administrations to accelerate GMP examination in 2002, only about 3800 of the previous 6400 pharmaceutical manufacturers met GMP regulations as of July 1, 2005.

Tax rise hits European service industries

EXPANSION in European service industries slowed last month after a tax increase in Germany damped consumer spending in Europe’s largest economy, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s services index, which gauges growth in industries from telecommunications to banking, fell to 57.5 from 57.9 in January. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. Economists expected the index, based on a survey of purchasing managers by NTC Economics Ltd, to fall to 57.6, the median of 33 estimates in a Bloomberg survey showed.

Europe’s economic growth may moderate this year from the fastest expansion in six years in 2006 as higher value-added sales taxes crimp household spending in Germany and global demand for European exports wanes. The European Central Bank has still signaled it will raise interest rates this week to keep prices in check as unions demand more pay for workers.

“You’d expect Germany to be weaker on the VAT increase,” said Ed Teather, an economist at UBS AG in London. The index “is still at a reasonable level, suggesting reasonable rates of growth.”

Business expectations in service industries improved in February, with the sub-index rising to 68 from 67.8, the highest in 13 months. Manufacturing growth in the euro region also picked up in February, a survey showed last week. Royal Bank of Scotland’s index of manufacturing sentiment rose to 55.6 after a reading of 55.5 in December.

“Growth momentum has remained firm in the first part of this year,” said Silvia Pepino, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co in London. “Hiring continues at a solid pace.”

Unemployment in the euro region fell to 7.4 percent in January, the lowest since the data was first collected in 1993.

Economic boom a bonanza for graduates

SHANGHAI’S booming economy is having a flow-on effect throughout society – and university graduates are no exception.

Monthly salaries for holders of new diplomas entering the workforce increased by nearly seven percent to 2,317 yuan (US$290) on average last year, according to the city’s latest graduate wages report.

The report, released by the Shanghai Labor and Social Security Bureau yesterday, provided payment standards for 200 positions in 2,200 local companies to guide students seeking jobs in the new semester.

The overall mean figure for graduates, including polytechnic students, college and uni graduates and postgraduates, was 2,107 yuan last year, up five percent on the 2005 figure.

Master’s degree holders achieved the highest income of 4,020 yuan per month. Their wage growth of 6.7 percent is second only to that of undergraduates.

Fang Zhijie, an official with the bureau’s salary division, said graduates’ salaries were lifted by both the economy and the huge demand in the manufacturing and services sectors.

“The city’s ongoing industry restructuring has brought about demand for innovative talents with both theoretical knowledge and practical ability,” Fang said.

For instance, salaries for young electronics engineers jumped 15 percent to 2,800 yuan a month.

In contrast, graduates majoring in general administration or management are facing a salary downturn.

The report said graduates working in file-management positions were paid 1,763 yuan last year, a two percent drop on the previous year.

Human Resources Conference Offers Insider Insights Into Doing Business in China

China is the world’s
fastest-growing economy, offering significant opportunities for U.S.
businesses, but also a unique set of HR challenges. Quick employee
turnover, widely varying employment laws between provinces, recruiting the
right talent, benefits desired by Chinese workers — are all issues for
companies entering China and organizations already there.
“Making China Your ‘Gold Mountain,'” a new conference and exposition in
South San Francisco on May 23-25, explores the unique human resource
difficulties that can significantly affect business success in China. The
conference is hosted by XMei International, a business consulting and
development organization with expertise in Chinese business practices and
their cultural impact.
The conference is the first event in the U.S. with influential Chinese
HR executives and business leaders from multinational companies, private
Chinese companies, Chinese consulting firms and the government.
Among the abundance of practical advice, attendees will learn:

* Compensation and benefits trends, including how much to pay employees,
how to pay them, required benefits, typical benefits package, and what
benefits are most valued by Chinese workers
* How to find top talent in China, including how to advertise jobs, and
keys to retaining employees in a culture where the average length of
employment is two years.
* How Chinese culture impacts doing business in China, including how to
work effectively across cultures
* How to outsource HR services in China, including what HR products and
services are available in the Chinese marketplace
* How to comply with Chinese employment law — and the critical
differences amongst provinces.
* Which Chinese provinces are the most labor friendly and how to set up
business in China.
Delivering keynote speeches will be Dr. George Koo and Dr. Irv Beiman.
Dr. Koo, the Director of Chinese Services Group for Deloitte and Touche,
will speak on the conference theme, “Making China Your ‘Gold Mountain.'”
Dr. Beiman, Chairman of eGate Consulting, Shanghai, will address the links
between challenges and solutions of doing business in China to HR
requirements there. He’ll discuss five root causes of the HR problems that
hinder successful execution of business in China.
“This conference and expo represent a great opportunity to develop a
Chinese business network,” said Xiaoli Mei, president and founder of XMei
International. “Our keynoters and session speakers are completely
accessible. Those doing business in China, and those considering it, will
benefit from the educational and social components of the event.”
To learn more about the conference, or to register to attend or
exhibit, visit http://www.xmei-int.com/US-China-HR-conference.html
About XMei International
XMei International is dedicated to promoting business development
between the U.S. and China. It organizes events in the U.S. and China that
enable companies to develop new business opportunities, increase knowledge
of the other country’s business practices, and make valuable international
business connections. XMei International also offers other services,
including business matches, consulting and market research for U.S. and
Chinese clients.