Category News of China

GF Securities president resigns amid scandal

THE president of GF Securities Co has resigned after China’s stock regulator found irregularities during the broker’s proposed backdoor listing amid a get-tough crackdown on stock-related crimes.

Dong Zhengqing, who was in charge of GF’s daily operation, tendered his resignation letter on Friday and the board approved his quit on Saturday, the Shenzhen-based broker said yesterday.

Li Jianyong, former deputy president at the broker, will take over Dong’s post temporarily. Dong left because regulators discovered irregularities during the broker’s backdoor issuance, “which has cast negative influence on the broker,” GF said.

China’s stock-market watchdog said late last month that it plans to punish a raft of companies and executives involved in the listing of GF after it found improper disclosures and insider trading in the process.

GF, China’s fourth biggest broker by 2006 revenue, in September proposed to acquire Yan Bian Highway Construction Co via a stock swap for the purpose of a back-door listing.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission said it would punish Yan Bian and one of its shareholders Jilin Aodong Medicine Industry Group as well as several people involved for improper information disclosures.

Earlier media reports said Li’s brother made a profit of nearly 100 million yuan (US$13.1 million) by trading Yan Bian’s shares through acquiring the information in advance.

GF yesterday denied any wrongdoing involving its executives and declined to comment further.

China’s financial authorities are encouraging the country’s biggest brokerages to seek public funds for expansion before the nation opens the fledgling industry to overseas competitors.

However, the CSRC is taking tougher actions to combat insider dealings and market manipulation as stock prices of companies involved in the back-door issues fluctuated even before the plans were made public.
China’s mainland stock bourses only have two publicly traded brokers ¨C Citic Securities Co and Hong Yuan Securities Co.

GF, which is still awaiting approval for its listing, is set to become the third mainland-traded brokerage.

The resignation of its president won’t hinder the broker’s back-door issuance, GF said yesterday. It didn’t give an estimate on when it would likely gain regulatory green light for the listing.

A slew of other Chinese giant brokerage houses including Haitong Securities Co and Northeast Securities Co have announced proposals for back-door listings, which were believed to be easier for firms to go public than initial public offerings.

The CSRC requires IPO candidates to post profit for three years in a row. Brokers including Orient Securities and Everbright Securities Co have said they would like to pursue IPOs as early as next year when they can meet the threshold.

Japan’s fall in jobless boost Asian markets

ASIAN stocks advanced for a second day yesterday after reports in Japan showed an unexpected drop in unemployment and a rise in household spending, Bloomberg News reported.

Mizuho Financial Group Inc climbed to a three-month high, on speculation the improving economy will allow the Bank of Japan to lift interest rates, widening lenders’ profit margins.

“The positive economic data from Japan is helping sentiment for the rest of the region,” said Leslie Phang, who helps manage about US$1 billion at Commonwealth Private Bank in Singapore.

The Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia-Pacific Index added 0.7 percent to 149.26 at 8:01pm in Tokyo. Technology stocks rose after Sanyo Electric Co forecast its first annual profit in four years and CJ Investment & Securities Co said earnings at LG.Philips LCD Co will improve. Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average added 0.5 percent to 17,672.56, while the broader Topix index gained 0.8 percent. Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd advanced after UBS AG reaffirmed its bullish stance on shipping companies.

BHP Billiton Ltd led mining stocks higher in Australia as prices of metals including copper advanced and on speculation of takeovers within the industry. Coles Group Ltd dropped after US buyout company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co abandoned its nine-month pursuit of the Australian retailer.

Benchmarks rose, except in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Thailand was little changed.

Mizuho, Japan’s second-largest lender by assets, rose 2.3 percent to 864,000 yen (US$7,100), its highest close since February 23. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, the third largest, advanced 1.7 percent to 1.18 million yen.

Sanyo, the world’s largest maker of rechargeable batteries, jumped 10 percent to 213 yen.

BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company, gained 1.8 percent to A$31.70 (US$25.98). Rio Tinto Group, the third largest, climbed 2.4 percent to A$96.36.

People rush to train as social workers

MORE than 70 applicants have signed up for a training program to become professional social workers on a course run by the Labor and Social Security Bureau in Pudong New Area.

Lessons to teach basic knowledge of population and family planning kicked off last week, as part of the long-term program.

About 60 people signed up for the class, but organizers were surprised to find more than 70 joined the course.

“The course is designed to train professionals who can offer counseling services related to population and family planning,” said Ji Zhongxian, a bureau official.

The training program, which will hold six classes over 10 days, will focus on introducing theories and concepts that a social worker should know.

Another training class designed for directors of residents’ committees will also open soon – attracting more than 500 applicants so far.

The proactive approach focuses on theories and practical skills to solve problems, such as how to settle disputes among residents.

“Social work in Shanghai is still in its infancy and there are very few professional social workers at present,” said Zhang Linqiang, bureau spokesman.

Zhang added that there are 20,000 professional social workers in Hong Kong, which has a population of six million. There are only 3,000 professionals in Shanghai, which has a population of 18 million.

“Pudong New Area developed social work as early in the 1990s, but among 60,000 social workers in this area, only about 250 people have obtained the certificate of professional social workers,” Zhang said.

China Career Builder Corp’s Subsidiary, Asian Career Company Ltd. Signed Additional Strategic Agreement

HONG KONG, May 23, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) — China Career Builder Corp., (“The Company”) (Pink Sheets:CCBX) a Delaware Corporation, is focused on outsourcing human resource services and staffing services in Hong Kong, China. The company is pleased to announce Asian Career Company Ltd. has signed an additional strategic agreement with Monster.com Asia Pacific Ltd., a division of Monster Worldwide Inc. Under the terms and agreement, Asian Career Company Ltd. will gain accesses to Monster.com registered users for the following regions, which including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

“We had a good start to the year in each of our businesses and continue to move forward to reach our goals. We are expecting continue to sign and formation strategic alliance in human resource and staffing services sector throughout Hong Kong and China. The level of activity in human resource and staffing service sector remains very strong, so we are optimistic about our continued progress and maintaining our leadership position in this emerging market,” said Mona Yim, President and CEO of China Career Builder Corp.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

China Career Builder Corp. (“The Company”) through its subsidiary, Asian Career Company Ltd. provides outsourcing human resource services and staffing services in Hong Kong, China. The company provides recruitment services focusing on the professional, management, clerical, administrative, IT and industrial market. Its services include screening, recruiting, training, workforce deployment, loss prevention and safety training, pre-employment testing and assessment, background searches, compensation program design, customized personnel management reports, job profiling, description, application, turnover tracking and analysis, opinion surveys and follow-up analysis, exit interviews and follow-up analysis, and management development skills workshops. The company markets its recruitment services through a combination of direct sales, telemarketing, trade shows, and advertising. The company is incorporated in Delaware, and headquartered in Hong Kong, China.

For further information please refer to the Company’s website at www.ChinaCareerBuilder.com

If you would like to receive regular updates on China Career Builder Corp. please send your email request to info@ChinaCareerBuilder.com or contact the company’s Investor and Public relations at ir@ChinaCareerBuilder.com .

SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT

Certain of the statements set forth in this press release constitute “forward-looking statements.” Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate, or imply future results, performance or achievements, and may contain the words “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “plan,” “planning,” “expect,” “believe,” “will likely,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “may” or words or expressions of similar meaning. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the company’s actual results and financial position to differ materially from those included within the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including those relating to the Company’s ability to grow its business. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the Company’s limited financial resources, domestic or global economic conditions — especially those relating to China, activities of competitors and the presence of new or additional competition, and changes in Federal or State laws, restrictions and regulations on doing business in a foreign country, in particular China, and conditions of equity markets. The Company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statement or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

Private Firms Launch Charity To Provide Employment Opportunities In China

With the approach of the 17th National Disabled Day, Jiang Xipei, chairman of Far East Holding Group, has announced that his company would unite with five private firms to set up a charity to promote employment opportunities for China’s 83 million handicapped people.

The first batch of firms that have joined the fund include Yurun Group, Hongdou Holding, LAD Group, Yuexing Group, Eastide Group and Fast East Holding Group. Named the Far East Fund, it is one of the largest non-government sponsored charity funds to provide employment opportunities for disabled people. The money they raise will be used to sponsor projects which provide job training and services for handicapped people, and to give awards to outstanding handicapped people and to people who have done a lot to help the handicapped in China.

China has 83 million handicapped people but only 23 million are employed. Around 9 million employable handicapped people have no jobs, and their number increases by 300,000 a year.

Local media reports the Far East Fund has raised more than RMB100 million to date and expects to garner another RMB100 million within a year.

Executive Search Leader to Speak at XMei’s China-U.S. HR Conference

XMei International, a U.S.-China business consulting and development organization, announces that executive search expert Kyung H. Yoon will deliver a key speech at their upcoming conference and expo, “Making China Your ‘Gold Mountain.’”

Yoon, the vice chairman of Heidrich & Struggles International, Inc., will speak on “What it Takes to Lead in China,” addressing the leadership needs of Chinese organizations. The talk is based on a 12-month study of the top talent situation in China, conducted by Heidrich & Struggles in partnership with Stanford University’s Project on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Yoon will share her own insights from a long career in global executive search as well.

The research study is based on in-depth interviews with over 100 top executives of China technology enterprises like Lenovo, Neusoft, and AsiaInfo.
It provides a blueprint for how to pick the entrepreneurs and executives who are most likely to prevail in a highly competitive and fast-changing market.

“Making China Your Gold Mountain” will be held in South San Francisco from May 23-25 and 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. XMei’s goal is to create an environment for learning and networking among those interested in business ventures between China and the U.S.

“Finding quality leadership is one of the key challenges of doing business in China,” said Xiaoli Mei, president and founder of XMei International. “Ms. Yoon’s experience and insight will prove invaluable to attendees.”

An executive summary of the study, titled “Getting Results in China,” may be downloaded at http://www.xmei-int.com/whitePapers.html.

About Kyung Yoon
Kyung Yoon is vice chairman of Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. and a member of the Office of the Chairmen, which directs the firm’s board of directors, CEO and other marquee search assignments on a worldwide basis. Since joining the firm in 1994 in Menlo Park, California, Kyung has been one of the key drivers in Heidrick & Struggles’ Asia Pacific expansion. She served as Area Managing Partner, North Asia, with management responsibility for the Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai and Seoul offices and spent five years in Singapore and Hong Kong.

About XMei International

XMei International is dedicated to promoting business development between the U.S. and China. It organizes events, both in the U.S. and China, which 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 and consulting and market research for both U.S. and Chinese clients.

Contact:
Liz Menkes
XMei International
lmenkes(at)xmei-int.com
925-708-6304

German Company Supports Chinese Energy-Efficient Construction

Germany’s Wacker Chemie AG is participating in an initiative launched by the German Deutsche Energie Agentur GmbH and the Chinese Ministry of Construction to support and promote the construction and renovation of climate-adapted and energy-efficient buildings in China.

A roadshow through six major Chinese cities has started in Beijing and includes a series of seminars on energy-efficient construction for Chinese construction industry professionals. The aim is to support the development and use of energy-efficient products and promote internationally recognized quality standards in China.

Rising fuel costs, global warming and local climatic conditions mean that efficient exterior insulation is becoming increasingly important in China. After all, the better a building’s insulation is, the less energy is needed for heating and air conditioning. Wacker research says it has shown that effective exterior insulation can reduce a building’s energy consumption by up to 60%. According to Deutsche Energie Agentur, buildings in China require four times as much energy for heating and cooling per square meter of living area than those in industrialized European countries.

As the federal German competence centre for energy efficiency and renewable energies, Deutsche Energie Agentur coordinates and implements projects and campaigns at a national and international level. Now, Deutsche Energie Agentur has joined up with Wacker and other European industrial partners to carry out a strategic and high-profile transfer of German construction-sector energy-efficiency expertise to China.

Six regional seminars are scheduled, involving close collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Town Planning, the Chinese Ministry of Construction and the subsidiary Center for Energy Efficiency in Buildings. Support is also being provided by the German Embassy in Beijing. In these technical seminars, experts will explain energy-efficient construction practices to Chinese participants and emphasize the necessity of quality regarding planning, the choice of materials and during construction itself.

Besides Beijing, seminars will be held over the coming months in Shenyang, Shanghai, Qingdao, Chengdu and Shenzhen. To accompany and complement the presentations, the organizers are publishing a manual featuring the most important energy-efficiency activities in both new construction projects and the renovation of existing buildings.

China recruiting U.S. IT grads

China’s rapid economic expansion has allowed Beijing to fund a recruitment drive targeting some of the best and brightest IT graduates from U.S. universities, according to Chinese sources.

In turn, this brain trust is being used by China both as a control on its own Internet revolution and as a potential resource for North Korea’ cyberwar program.

South Korea defense ministry said North Korean hackers are targeting the most tightly-guarded systems of that country’s main foes to extract intelligence information and to spread viruses capable of wiping out material or, at least, slowing down computers.

North Korean students learn how to use computers at an elite school in Pyongyang. AFP

Defense officials said privately that North Korea, with no great pool of computer whizzes from which to select, is relying on Chinese aid and advice to train some 600 qualified hackers in five years.
One Hong Kong-based specialist said China has a budget for hiring the best IT graduates from U.S. universities to monitor and control Internet news reporting, and useage within its own borders as well as for a national security resource. “They’ve got the money, and they are spending it,” he said.

In North Korea, the campaign ranks as a priority for Kim Jong-Il, who whetted his appetite for computer skullduggery during visits to China and Russia several years ago. Kim made a point of visiting computer labs in both countries and decided that all North Koreans should somehow become adept at operating computers even though Internet access is forbidden except for the highly privileged elites.

Those having access include Kim Jong-Il’s closest relatives, friends and allies, notably from the armed forces, as well as extremely well-trained technicians who had to pass strenuous tests of loyalty before being accepted into the elite computer course.

Students are studying in China and also at an academy that South Korean officials say has been educating a cadre of elite technicians for more than 20 years in a remote mountainous region.

Unions focus on overseas firms

THE government wants the percentage of foreign-invested city enterprises with trade unions to exceed 80 percent by the end of this year, the Shanghai Trade Union said yesterday.

By the end of March this year, 9,063 of the more than 11,600 foreign-invested firms in the city had established trade unions, a threefold increase compared to 2003.

Chen Hao, chairman of the Shanghai Trade Union, said establishment of a trade union could help protect workers’ legal rights.

Chen cited Shanghai Uchino, an enterprise with 100 percent Japanese investment, as a good example of a company operating with a union.

The Japanese company was set up in Shanghai in 1995. The trade union was established at the same time. Of its 1,900 employees, more than 1,800 have joined the union.

“Every time we make a rule or plan, we discuss with our employees together,” said Ji Weizhong, chairman of the company’s trade union. “We have held two staff conferences last year and set every contract term with our workers.”

Organized by the trade union, the company also signed a special contract with female employees to guarantee their rights and interests. One of the contract terms stipulates that the company will hold health checks for women every year, and pregnant employees can have extra breaks.

“What we do for them added, but what they do for the company multiplied,” said Chen Longbao, the company’s manager. “We can benefit more, because when employees are favored by their contracts, they will work harder than before.”

China to spend US$4.3b in US shopping spree

CHINA is on another shopping spree in the United States that appears to be as much about salesmanship as the country’s rapidly growing purchasing power.

Hoping to ease tensions raised by the massive trade imbalance dividing two of the world’s economic powers, China has periodically come to the United States on “buying missions” to demonstrate the country’s willingness to import more goods and services.

China kicked off its latest campaign on Wednesday in San Francisco with a commitment to buy US$4.3 billion in US technology.

In two weeks, government leaders will begin talks in Washington on the US’ US$232 billion trade deficit with China and other issues.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart George W. Bush yesterday exchanged views in a telephone conversation on the upcoming second round of strategic economic dialogue between the two countries.

Hu appreciated the US government’s active attitude toward the development of China-US economic and trade cooperation.

Hu said he believes that with concerted efforts by both sides, positive achievements will be scored in this round of dialogue, which will contribute to giving fresh impetus to China-US economic and trade cooperation.

Bush hopes that great achievements will be made in this round of dialogue.

At a posh hotel in San Francisco, a broad cross-section of business and government leaders from China and the United States celebrated 27 contracts signed on Wednesday.

The deals primarily involved computer software, semiconductor and telecommunications companies. The list of US beneficiaries included high-tech bellwethers Microsoft Corp, Oracle Corp, Cisco Systems Inc and Hewlett Packard Co.

California Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi hailed the agreements as an “important step in furthering the deep relationship between this state, this country and China.”

To underscore China’s resolve to explore more US investments, executives from more than 200 Chinese companies are meeting with their US counterparts in 24 cities scattered across 23 states, said Ma Xiuhong, vice commerce minister.

She met with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the state Capitol on Wednesday, and the governor later said California had nearly doubled sales to China. California exports to China totaled nearly US$10 billion in 2006, Schwarzenegger said.