Archives March 2007

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.