Archives December 2014

Shanghai FTZ finalizes pilot program

‘Parallel auto imports’ will be allowed in new scheme

A pilot scheme for “parallel auto imports” in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) has been finalized and will be rolled out soon, Xinhua reported Tuesday.

The move is expected to bring down vehicle prices and improve warranties and after-sales services.

“Parallel imports” refer to the practice of car dealers importing genuine vehicles from foreign markets to China without the permission of the manufacturer or the authorized distributor. Prices of cars imported this way are usually 15 percent to 20 percent lower than the cars imported via regular channels, as the import process is simplified, analysts said.

Details of the pilot scheme will be released soon, including the requirements for enterprises that could participate in the scheme and the institution of trade rules, Xinhua quoted Gu Jun, deputy head of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, as saying.

The State Council released a batch of measures to strengthen China’s imports on November 6, including speeding up the rollout of the pilot program for “parallel car imports.”

“Parallel imports” will drag auto prices to a reasonable level, Gu said.

After the State Council approved the scheme, related authorities have been working to figure out details, especially on the vehicles’ quality safety and after-sales services, said Gu.

Lack of warranties and after-sales services is a major reason that consumers hesitate to buy the parallel imported vehicles. The pilot scheme aims to solve these problems.

Analysts suggest a services center be established in the Shanghai FTZ to provide registration, insurance, tax and maintenance services to cars that are imported through the pilot scheme. Furthermore, existing automobile dealership stores and auto repair shops could also be motivated to provide services to these vehicles.

Cars imported via such “parallel” channels amounted to 83,000 in 2013, accounting for 8 percent of the country’s overall vehicle imports, according to data from China Automobile Dealers Association. Hu Siyu, an official with the association, expected that the number of parallel imported vehicles would rise by 32 percent year-on-year in 2014.

A total of 16 Land Rover and Mercedes-Benz cars were transported by rail to Southwest China’s Chongqing on Thursday, marking the first time that China’s western region has imported autos through “parallel” channels, Xinhua said Tuesday.

It took just 18 days for the vehicles to arrive in Chongqing from Germany’s Duisburg. In comparison, it usually takes at least two months under regular channels, as imported vehicles are shipped to port cities such as Tianjin and Dalian first and then transported to the inland provinces, the report said.

Working priorities shift for new graduates


A job seeker receives interview at a job fair for postgraduates in Beijing, capital of China, Dec 18, 2014. About 18,000 opportunities were offered at the fair.

More young people set sights on growth opportunities, good salaries

For Chinese college students, jobs in the Chinese government or at State-owned enterprises, government-funded institutions and NGOs have become less and less appealing in the past three years.

Recent survey of online jobs site Zhaopin Ltd found that only 36 percent of Chinese college students still want to work within the “system”, which refers to governments or government-related organizations in 2014.

The percentage was as high as 54 percent in 2012.

Among the top 10 employers of 2014 in the eye of college students, only two are State-owned enterprises?China Telecom and ZTE.

More and more college students prefer to work “outside the system”, including in multinational companies, private companies or even their own startup business, the survey shows. Internet companies are gaining much more attention than before.

Liao Wenyu, a senior student at Beijing Normal University, said she prefers to work in a place where she can achieve her personal values instead of one where she is holding an “iron rice bowl”.

“The parents’ generation prefers to have jobs with a fixed income with no risk of bankruptcy and being laid off, so they’d like me to work as a civil servant or teacher, but I’d rather not,” Liao said. “I care more about the work environment, opportunity for growth, and a salary that can support a decent life in modern cities like Beijing.”

Wang Wenping, human resources director with Qihoo 360 Technology, said the company is trying to attract talent by encouraging innovation, which has proved good for talent recruiting as well as the ompany’s development.

“The majority of our team is very young. The post-’80 generation accounts for most of our staff members,” Wang said. “In our daily work, we will not put limitations on the work. For an example, if you have a good idea, you can report directly to the president.”

Wang said the 360 portable Wi-Fi router is the result of innovation from a group of young people in their company.

“The president will also talk directly to the talented people we are interested in,” Wang said. “We will not say that we are the best employer. People can find that out from the salaries we offer, the working environment as well as the attention they get from the high level.”

Guo Sheng, CEO of Zhaopin Ltd, said the trend mentioned earlier in the article is closely related to the ongoing economic and industrial adjustment.

“The college students are not as keen to be civil servants or working for State-owned enterprises as before. I think this is a good trend. Because it means that private sector and even midsize and small enterprises are becoming more appealing,” Guo said. “The means the monopoly of State-owned enterprises in certain fields is not as strong as before.”

“Besides, China is also undergoing transformation to green and service-orientated industry and expects consumption to be the new engine of growth,” added Guo. “This also has some effect on job election.”

China may ease investment rules in free trade zones

China may to ease investment rules in three new free trade zones (FTZs) in south China’s Guangdong Province, southeast China’s Fujian Province and north China’s Tianjin Municipality and current Shanghai FTZ, if proposal to the effect is approved by the legislature.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee will Friday debate on the proposal from the State Council to temporarily adjust regulations about administrative approvals in these FTZs.

Toy factories face fight for survival

Producing more than $453m worth of goods annually, companies in one county are adapting fast to change

Every year, as parents select the Christmas toys that could make them the world’s best Mom and Dad, few will realize that the machines that made them, or the workers that packed them, were probably from eastern China.

More than 90 percent of the wooden toys produced in Yunhe county, in eastern Zhejiang province, are exported to the European Union and the United States.

With a toy production history dating back 40 years, the county now accounts for one-third of China’s wooden toy exports.

Its 732 toy-making companies manufactured more than 2.77 billion yuan ($453.1 million) worth of toys last year, however, new challenges are mounting, most obviously the rising cost of labor and stagnating global demand.

“The time has passed when wooden toymakers made high and quick profits,” said Lin Hongbing, chairman of Zhejiang Hongyuan Toy Co.

“Workers’ wages are increasing by 10 percent each year, and it is impossible for us to raise the price of our products by that,” he said.

Lin said that other costs, too, are rising, such as transportation and electricity. “Inevitably, as a result profit margins can only go lower and lower.”

Statistics from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine show that China’s toy exports were worth $24.73 billion in 2013, down 1.64 percent from 2012, as the global market for their goods stagnated.

“Overseas customers are much more cautious. Previously they would take a fixed number of products every year and often over-order, happy to cover that cost. Now they would place orders only for what they know they can sell,” said Lin, whose company managed to maintain its normal export level in 2013, about 30 million yuan.

But many firms have not been so lucky.

The majority of the country’s wooden toy-making companies are original equipment manufacturers?those that make parts or products that are used in another’s end products?which means low added value, or the difference between the price of their finished products and the cost of making them, said Mao Fengming, secretary-general of the Yunhe toy association.

For a toy that is sold at $8 in the US, for instance, a producer in Yunhe is now likely to make around 20 cents.

“They have to upgrade their facilities and technologies to keep competitive on the international market,” Mao said.

To move further up the value chain, many of Yunhe’s toy producers have started to realize the importance of building their brands.

A decade ago, the country had just 11 recognized wooden toy brands; now there are more than 240, according to the toy association. But branding can be expensive.

Liao Fuxin, vice-president of the China Toy Association and president of Zhejiang Xinyun Wood Industry Group, Yunhe’s largest wooden toy producer, said his company has 70 percent of its products made through OEMs, with 30 percent being its own brands. It is targeting parity in the two categories in the next two years.

Liao said compared with the company’s own brands, OEM products bring about much higher margins. It also functions as an original design manufacturer for retailers such as US retail giants Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Costco Wholesale Corp. “We are in charge of the design and manufacturing process. But products have to be rebranded for specific target markets,” he said.

Liao concedes that the business model might not be sustainable long term?but “we are trying to pitch our own brands to consumers whenever possible”, he said.

Also vexing many of the toymakers are the frequent changes in technical standards of some of their target markets.

“The technical barriers to trade in the developed markets, especially, are adding hefty financial pressure. All the companies here are working hard to keep up, raising the safety standards of products,” Liao said.

The EU makes the most frequent changes, according to Yao Ting, an official with the Lishui Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

The standards on the sounds produced by toys, for instance, have been revised twice in recent years. But despite the changing standards, the county has maintained a record on product safety, with not one single alert on quality issued from the EU or US for 60 consecutive months.

Yunhe is one of nine national quality and safety demonstration zones now certified by the AQSIQ for industrial export products.

“The changing standards and high requirements actually offer companies the opportunity to improve products quality,” Liao said. “Without the technical barriers, Yunhe’s toy industry would not have prospered as it has.”

The standards expected of this often labor-intensive industry also mean that companies constantly remain under pressure to upgrade their equipment, an issue becoming all the most urgent as labor costs rise, and staff shortages grow.

More than 20,000 people, or one-fifth of the county’s population, are employed in the toy industry, but fewer remain willing to do the work due to its often-tedious nature.

“Young people would not do this job. In most cases we can only recruit women in their 30s or 40s,” said Lin Hongbing from Zhejiang Hongyuan Toy.

Many toymakers, including Lin’s company, have automated some of their production, on painting, for instance.

Mike Sagan, supply chain director for the US-based toymaker KidKraft, which buys more than 2 million sets of toys from the county annually, believes Yunhe’s competitive edge remains in the skill of its workers. But he also warns that its competitiveness could be lost without adequate investment in machinery and technology.

HK and mainland markets to see strong new listings in 2015: Deloitte

Hong Kong’s stock market is forecast to raise 180 to 220 billion HK dollars (23 to 28 billion U.S. dollars) from about 110 IPOs next year, backed by a large pool of candidates seeking to be listed, according to a report by Deloitte China.

Seven to eight large-scale initial public offerings (IPO), mainly from financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies, are expected among Hong Kong’s IPO activities, said the report.

The financial institutions include small and medium-sized banks, insurance companies, and brokerages that serve clients across the border, Deloitte said, adding that Internet financing and interest rate liberalization are spurring the new listings.

Hong Kong’s IPO market performed well in 2014 and is expected to be the world’s second-largest IPO venue for the second consecutive year.

Deloitte expects the A-share market on the Chinese mainland to have about 180 to 200 new listings and raise 100 to 120 billion yuan (16 to 19 billion U.S. dollars) in 2015, given the regulator’s plan to moderately increase IPO activities.

Small and medium IPOs from companies in the manufacturing, technology and consumer business sectors will play a crucial role in the market.

As for this year, Deloitte said though more companies completed their IPOs in the second half, the total number of IPOs and IPO funds raised in the year was still far behind those in 2012.

Wumei to buy stake in B&Q China


Pedestrians walk past a B&Q store near Tiantongyuan, a residential community in Beijing.

Kingfisher, the United Kingdom-based home improvements retailer, said on Monday that it had agreed to sell a 70 percent stake in its loss-making B&Q China business to Wumei Holdings Inc for 140 million pounds ($219 million), a move that is expected to boost Wumei’s retail presence.

The agreement follows Kingfisher’s announcement in March of its plans to look for a strategic partner to help develop its B&Q business in China, which is made up of 39 stores and employs 3,000.

“I am delighted to have found a strong retail partner who will help us realize the financial value of our business in China,” said VĂ©ronique Laury, chief executive of Kingfisher. The transaction will enable Kingfisher to focus on its main businesses in Europe, including the UK market leader B&Q and Castorama in France, said Laury.

Kingfisher, which has B&Q and Screwfix in the UK and Castorama and Brico Depot in France, is Europe’s biggest home improvement retailer.

Beijing-based Wumei, the leading retail chain store operator, has a retail network of about 650 supermarkets under the brand of Wumart and 10 department stores in northern, eastern and western China.

The deal is subject to approval by the Ministry of Commerce, and if approved, is likely to be completed during the first half of next year.

Jason Yu, general manager of Kantar Worldpanel China, a global consumer information provider, said the bold step will help Wumart move into the highly fragmented and competitive home improvement sector. “But Wumart will have to learn how to survive in the challenging home improvement sector,” he said.

Wumart had a 6.7 percent value share in the North China region’s grocery retailing sector, Kantar Worldpanel said, adding that the year-on-year growth trend was more or less flat, despite it being the top retailer in the region.

As one of the key local players in the China grocery sector, Wumart has faced several challenges, including cutthroat competition from the e-commerce sector.

Yu said such deals are common in the retail sector. “B&Q may be able to leverage on the local market expertise of Wumart,” he said. “The combined group will have larger scale as well as a stronger eco-system, a shopping center with both Wumart hypermarket as well as B&Q store, and better negotiation power and property portfolio. It will also allow Wumart to expand their business in regions where they do not currently have a presence.”

In 2012, Home Depot Inc, the largest home-improvement retailer in the United States, closed its remaining seven big box stores in China after it decided to shift its focus to specialty and online outlets in China.

Yu said Western home improvement retailers rely very much on the do-it-yourself concept?consumers buy the raw material and do the home improvement at home. However this does not work well in China as consumers typically rely on home improvement specialists to do the work.

Though B&Q and some other Western retailers started to offer these kind of services at their stores, it was not as competitive as other players. Most of the Western retailers had fewer stores and relatively weaker negotiation power with suppliers. As a result, they are also not able to offer advantageous prices, Yu said.

He said the recent cooling down of the real-estate market has led to weaker demand for home improvement-related work. Within the home improvement sector, the only successful example is Sweden’s Ikea that really wins based on the unique customer experiences it creates, he said.

Macao sees more hotel employees in Q3

The number of full-time hotel employees in China’s Macao Special Administrative Region reached 45,584 at the end of the third quarter of 2014, up 2.6 percent year-on-year, official figures showed on Thursday.[Special coverage]

According to the Statistics and Census Service, the average earnings of the hotel employees in September rose by 10.7 percent year-on-year to 15,750 patacas (1,972 US dollars).

Restaurants in the region registered 23,831 full-time employees at the end of September, up 9.3 percent, with their average earnings growing 8.4 percent year-on-year.

The number of employees of the financial sector stood at 6,530 full-time employees at the end of the third quarter, an increase of 2.7 percent.

Experts say the increase of employees in the non-gaming sectors could be seen as an indicator of Macao’s efforts to diversify its gambling-dominated economy.0 In the region with a population of around 630,000, the gaming industry accounts for about 80 percent of its revenue.

Asia to become world’s largest e-commerce market: EIU

Asia is set to surpass North America and snatch the title of the world’s largest e-commerce market this year, said the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

According to a report published on Tuesday in Beijing by the EIU, an advisory company under the Economist Group, it is estimated that retail sales in Asia will grow by an average 4.6 percent on a volume basis to 7.6 trillion U.S. dollars, compared with 2.5 percent in North America and 0.8 percent in Europe in 2015.

Report editor Laurel West said that the Asian consumer market was largely driven by the rising independence and economic power of Asia’s women, and female consumers in Asia are showing an unprecedented enthusiasm for online shopping.

The report is based on a survey of 5,500 women across major cities on the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, as well as countries including India, Japan, Singapore and the Republic of Korea. Among the survey respondents, 43 percent were in managerial, executive or professional services jobs.

Nearly half of the women agreed or strongly agreed that they preferred online- to in-store shopping. The proportion on the Chinese mainland was as much as 69 percent. Sixty-three percent of those polled browsed the Internet at least once a day for products and services, with nearly 30 percent doing so twice or more per day.

When choosing an online retailer, price and quality were the main factors considered, followed by genuine products and convenience.

Volvo to launch online car sales in global marketing strategy shift

Volvo Car Corp said it will start selling vehicles online as it rolls out new models to compete with German luxury rivals such as BMW.

The Swedish carmaker, controlled by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, will gradually introduce Web sales and spend more on digital advertising, it said as it outlined changes to its global marketing strategy on Monday.

Volvo raised its 2014 sales goal in August as it launched a revamped XC90 crossover, the first vehicle developed under Geely’s ownership.

“The plan is to have all our car lines in all our markets offered digitally,” Volvo sales chief Alain Visser said in an interview.

Few manufacturers have tried selling directly online. A notable exception is Tesla, whose electric car sales have cut out traditional dealers, leading to conflict and effective exclusion from parts of the US.

But Volvo has assured its 2,000 global dealerships, half of which are in Europe, that it has no such plans.

“If you say the word e-commerce, initially dealers get nervous,” Visser said.

“We don’t see a car distribution network without dealers in the foreseeable future,” he said, adding that vehicles sold online “will still pass through the dealer network” for delivery.

The Swedish carmaker plans to withdraw from all but one motor show per year in each of three regions – Europe, North America and Asia – and stage its own global event instead.

Volvo also said it would not follow rivals into city-center boutique dealerships of the kind increasingly used by BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi.

“We’re a different brand with limited financial means,” Visser said. “We don’t believe in building these big palaces.”

Some 80 percent of Volvo customers already shop online for other goods, the sales chief added, and research suggests many will do the same for cars in future.

But some analysts such as Stuart Pearson of Exane BNP Paribas remain skeptical, citing weak orders from experimental online sales of BMW’s i8 hybrid sports car.

“BMW has tried it in Germany, but they really haven’t had a huge amount of volume,” Pearson said. “People still want to go into dealers.”

Economic growth may slow to 7.1%

China’s economic growth could slow to 7.1 percent in 2015 from an expected 7.4 percent this year, held back by a sagging property sector, the central bank said in a research report on Friday.

Stronger global demand could boost exports, but not by enough to counteract the impact from weakening property investment, according to the report published on its website.

China’s exports are likely to grow 6.9 percent in 2015, quickening from this year’s 6.1 percent rise, while import growth is seen accelerating to 5.1 percent in 2015 from this year’s 1.9 percent, it said.

The report warned that the US Federal Reserve’s expected move to raise interest rates sometime next year could hit emerging market economies.

Fixed-assets investment growth may slow to 12.8 percent in 2015 from this year’s 15.5 percent, while retail sales growth may quicken to 12.2 percent from 12 percent, it said.

Consumer inflation may hold largely steady in 2015, at 2.2 percent, the report noted.

China’s economic growth weakened to 7.3 percent in the third quarter of 2014, and November’s soft factory and investment figures suggest full-year growth will miss the central government’s 7.5 percent target and mark the weakest expansion in 24 years.

Economists who advise the government have recommended that China lower its growth target to around 7 percent in 2015.

China’s employment situation is likely to hold up well next year due to faster expansion of the services sector, despite slower economic growth, said the report.