By Julia Gu
Feb. 3 – At the eighth annual World Famous Brands Assembly (WFBA) recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia, the U.S.-China Economic Trade and Investment General Chamber of Commerce, the Europe-America-Asia Cooperation Union for Investment in Industry and Commerce, and the World Cities and World Business Research Association jointly released a list of the “2011 Top 50 Chinese Cities with Strongest Investment Potential.” Continue reading
Two-thirds of China’s provinces report GDP figures over RMB1 trillion (US$158 billion) in 2011
By Julia Gu
Jan. 27 – Preliminary statistics show that China’s GDP grew at a robust 9.2 percent in 2011 to RMB47.16 trillion (US$7.26 trillion), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said last week at a press conference.
While this rate represents a drop of 1.2 percent compared to the 10.4 percent GDP growth experienced in 2010, last year’s growth rate was still 1.2 percent above the 8 percent year-on-year growth target set at the beginning of 2011. Continue reading
Jan. 26 – While China has long been the world’s top producer and overall consumer of coal, the country also became the largest importer of the resource last year, overtaking a position held by Japan since at least 1975.
Customs data compiled by the International Energy Agency show that strong domestic demand boosted China’s coal imports by 10.8 percent in 2011 to 182.4 million tons. Japan’s imports of the fossil fuel dropped by 5.1 percent to 175.2 million tons over the same period due, at least in part, to the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the country’s northeast coast last March. Continue reading
Jan. 24 – Recent sanctions placed on Iran by the United States and European Union, aimed at pressuring the Iranian government into halting its nuclear weapons program with a trade embargo, have caused a serious diplomatic dilemma for China – a major importer of Iranian oil.
The United States has introduced new legislation which will allow for punitive sanctions on foreign banks and businesses facilitating the Iranian oil trade. In a move that demonstrates the conviction of the U.S. authorities for upholding the new law, oil firm Zhuhai Zhenrong has been the first Chinese business placed under sanctions for selling petroleum products to Iran. Continue reading
China’s 2012 growth rates compared with other emerging Asian economies
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Jan. 23 – The development of China over the past 30 years has changed global trade dynamics beyond imagination. That it is also kick-starting a previously laid back Asia is also beyond doubt, and of huge strategic importance to multinationals keen to maintain growth rates and sustainable profits.
As much of the West continues to struggle with the lingering fallout of the Global Financial Crisis, and with low growth rates expected everywhere across the United States and most of Europe, getting growth back into multinational companies not already expanding in Asia is a task that unites the entire Eurozone and the United States. With GDP growth in all these areas either minimal, static or at worst, entering recession, emerging Asia offers a way out. Growth in China has been slowing, but it is still buoyant at an expected 7 percent to 8 percent for 2012; and India has recently overtaken China in terms of the highest GDP growth of a major global economy. India’s GDP is expected to grow by 8.5 percent to 9 percent this year. Continue reading
By Vivian Ni
Jan. 18 – In its newest “12th Five-year Plan on Greenhouse Emission Control (guofa [2011] No. 41),” China has set its new goals of reducing carbon emissions in the next five years and called for pilot programs that aim to promote a low-carbon economy.
New goals
The newly released Plan aims to reduce China’s carbon intensity – the amount of carbon emitted per unit of GDP – by 17 percent by 2015, compared with 2010 levels. Energy consumption intensity by GDP will also be reduced by 16 percent during the same period. Continue reading
The “socialist market economy” was born this week in 1992
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Jan. 16 – An anniversary occurs this week that may well go unnoticed by many – the 20th year since Deng Xiaoping, China’s premier at the time, visited Shenzhen as part of an unusual South China tour. To set the scene to recall why this was so important an event is to remember that China had not really fully opened up its economy on the back of reforms instigated by Deng in the late 1980s. What had at one stage seemed to be a sincere movement to open the country up came to a shuddering halt in the aftermath of the Tiananmen incident. I was in China at that time, employed by Asia Law & Practice (now part of Euromoney) – it was to be a further few months before I was to establish my firm, Dezan Shira & Associates. That I did so was almost entirely down to Deng’s visit. Continue reading
Jan. 13 – Wang Yang, the head of the Communist Party for China’s wealthy Guangdong Province, has alerted the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) that the province faces a tough and difficult year ahead in 2012. Guangdong is by far the richest province in China, having boomed during China’s export crescendo, but has been hit with rising labor costs and falling orders. Many businesses in the province over the last three years have either closed or relocated to cheaper destinations in China or to Vietnam, Bangladesh or India.
Yang told the CCPPC that the next 12 months would likely be the toughest the province would face in the past 30 years of China’s reform and development, and stated the province “sat on the edge of economic difficulty, social conflicts and even political risk.” Continue reading
Dezan Shira & Associates provide a range of services for companies looking to undertake foreign direct investment into Asia, These include corporate establishment, accounting, tax, payroll, audit and due diligence. To learn more about the firm, please contact one of our specialists at china@dezshira.com, download our corporate brochure or visit at us www.dezshira.com
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