Although it has traditionally shied away from foreign interaction, China’s recent decision to raise the maximum limit placed on foreign institutional investments to $1 billion shows that China may want to be a bigger part of the global economic community. The rules took effect on September 29th and were made public by China’s foreign exchange regulator over the weekend.
The State Administration of Foreign Exchange issued a draft of a change to the rules that would allow the investment limit to be raised earlier this month. China also left open the possibility of further changes to the limit in the future …read more

Police are holding a former employee at a Chinese Coca-Cola bottling plant as part of a corruption investigation, according to a spokesperson for the firm. So far, the company has refused to give too many details, only releasing that the employee in question had worked at the Shanghai Shenmei Beverage & Food Co Ltd.
 
According to the Chinese language National Business Daily, the corruption case involves about $1.47 million, but Coca-Cola’s communication director, who has already released the current information regarding the case, would not comment on the amount of money involved. The employee, according to all reports, has been cooperating …read more

Kai-fu Lee made headlines when he quit Google and abandoned his post as the Internet search giant’s China chief. Now, Kai-fu Lee, who has become a well-known figure in China as the face of Google, has announced via his Twitter page that he will start up his own company dedicated to funding Chinese technology start-ups.
 
According to Lee, his plan is to launch a venture business platform that will eventually grant funding to young Chinese entrepreneurs hoping to get a foothold in the technology sector. The money will be given as part of “angel funding,” which is a practice in which …read more

Although Chinese government officials in Henan Province were intent on going through with the privatization of a local state-owned steel mill, a protest involving thousands of workers and the taking of an official as a hostage seemed to put an end to the government’s aspirations. The protests mark a surge in activism in China’s crucial steel industry.
 
Chinese demonstrations have already turned bloody, with rioting workers having beat to death three weeks ago an executive that was trying to sell a different state-owned steel company. The death of the executive ended up postponing the sale of the steel mill, with the …read more

Wang Bing headed to lead corporate finance in China for BofA-Merrill.

It may seem that China already produces a much greater quantity of goods than the United States because of the abundance of “Made in China” labels in every retailer; however, the U.S. still out-manufactures China, producing 20 percent of goods globally to China’s 12 percent. Analysts predict, though, that the U.S. may not be the world’s largest manufacturer for much longer.
 
IHS/Global Insight, an economic-forecasting firm based in Lexington, Massachusetts, predicts that China will surpass the U.S. in real value-added manufacturing in 2015. This would mean that China will have managed to nearly quadruple the value of its manufactured goods in …read more

China’s economy will shake off the effects of the world economic downturn and return to a booming and vibrant state by 2010, a survey presented to one hundred multinational and Chinese company senior executives at The Marketing Group of China’s event in Shanghai revealed this week.

The data collected showed that a mood of cautious optimism exists in marketing departments, with 75% of those interviewed believing the economy would turn around by 2010. The respondents indicated that China would recover more quickly as it was experiencing the crisis in a different manner than the West, whose consumers had been affected on …read more

Google confirmed today that access to their video sharing site, YouTube, is currently being blocked in China. Reports of the ban began surfacing late yesterday.
This is not the first time YouTube has been blocked in this country. About a year ago, China’s government banned YouTube after users began posting images of the riots in Tibet. Earlier, in late 2007, both Google and YouTube were reportedly blocked during a meeting by the communist party.
Although Google has confirmed the block, they say they don’t know why it happened.
“We do not know the reason for the blockage, but we are working to restore …read more

If you’re tired of the U.S. residential real estate market’s struggles, you might consider moving, to China.