China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog has learnt that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China’s biggest e-commerce company, plans to step up efforts to fight counterfeiting, which the company head says is the biggest obstacle for its future development.

China Daily reported that the Hangzhou-based company will spend “as much as it can” to tackle counterfeiting problems on its e-commerce websites, said Shao Xiaofeng, Alibaba’s chief risk officer.

The company will set up a committee for intellectual property rights protection this year, which will have Lu Zhaoxi, its new CEO starting on May 10, as head and Alibaba’s different business division leaders as members, Shao said.

The effort came after the company was removed from the United States’ yearly list of the world’s most “notorious markets” last year because of its improvement in reducing counterfeits.

“I am afraid that something we notice but don’t prevent today will eventually grow into a cancer for a company’s future development. … That’s why I think I will surely regret it if we don’t do well in fighting counterfeits,” Ma Yun, Alibaba’s chairman, said at his last news conference before he officially steps down as CEO on May 10.

About 2,000 employees at Alibaba are responsible for protecting intellectual property rights.

Last year, Alibaba dealt with 94 million items that infringed copyrights and handed out punishment 900,000 times, it said.

In the first three months of this year, China’s public security organs have dealt with 3,747 counterfeit cases, which involved a total value of 24.2 billion yuan ($3.91 billion), said Meng Qingfeng, head of the Economic Crime Investigation Department of the Ministry of Public Security.

In December, a report from the United States Trade Representative said that Taobao, owned by Alibaba, “has worked with rights holders to significantly decrease the listing of infringing products for sale through its website, and has committed to continue working to streamline its complaint procedures to further reduce listings of counterfeit products”.

China Watch Blog has learnt that a Russian entrepreneur wants to introduce MAT Russian swear words – to the English speaking world and in doing so upset all sense of decency.

MAT is the term used to describe Russian sacral swearwords and the plot is simple yet ingenious. Introduce English speaking people to MAT and encourage them to use these Russian words regularly. The ingenious part of the plot is that very few of their friends and family will know that they are swearing and by using these words individuals will be participating in one of the best stress relieving activities around.

The leader of this plot to infiltrate the English language and scandalize Americans is Sergey Yanchevskiy. According to Yanchevskiy there is pure healing magic in properly shaped sacral swearwords, especially Russian language swear words. Yanchevskiy and his team are planning to gather the most effective Russian swear words into one book and then deliver these MAT guides to libraries throughout the United States.

Their diabolical scheme is to introduce as many Americans as possible to the healing power of MAT and they won’t rest until they can walk any street in the country and hear these Russian swear words being expressed on a regular basis.

In essence, the goal of Yanchevskiy’s project is to undermine conventional norms by making swearing more acceptable. Using Russian, a language few Americans know is the perfect way to allow people to swear without obviously offending anyone. It’s scandalous, it’s ingenious and it just might work.

Drawing on recent studies by some of the top researchers Yanchevskiy is testing out the new theory that getting made and yelling out swear words is healthy and in fact can have a healing effect. Researchers are now learning that getting angry every now and then and relieving stress by shouting a few swear words can actually help people cope with daily life in a more effective manner.

Of course there is always the problem of the social stigma of swearing but one can only be offended if they are aware that a swear word has been uttered. That’s where Russian MAT comes in. Like a covert operation, Yanchevskiy and his colleagues will infiltrate the English language and offer people the chance to curse to their hearts content with few people understanding what they are saying.

Yanchevskiy argues that Russian MAT is more effective at helping people cope with stress because of the way the Russian words are structured and how they sound. Forcefully pronouncing the Russian words correctly leads to the maximum stress relieve for those who say them.

Yanchevskiy is currently in the early stages of developing his book and is offering the average person the chance to take part in making the book a great success. He has teamed with Indiegogo.com to fund this project. The partnership with Indiegogo let’s Yanchevskiy enlist many different people in his subversive plot to infiltrate the English language and bring Russian MAT to the masses.

Red Wings, photo courtesy albspotter.eu, http://albspotter.eu

Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev announced the sale of his carrier Red Wings to a group of unnamed investors on Twitter, according to a TTG Nordic report.

A Red Wings Tupolev crashed at Moscow’s third airport, Vnukovo, in December. No passengers were on board but five crew members were killed. Russian regulators suspended its operations earlier this year. It operated a fleet of eight TU-204 jets.

China Watch Blog has learnt that under new taxation changes, foreigners in China will no longer enjoy exemptions from various investment taxes.

The State Council unveiled sweeping tax reform plans Tuesday to make the rich pay more and narrow the income gap between urban elites and the rural poor.

Included in the plans is a measure to cancel tax exemptions for foreign individuals who obtain dividends and bonuses from foreign-invested enterprises, according to a report in Caixin.

A tax rate of 20 percent currently applies to dividends and bonuses, according to China’s existing personal income tax law.

The Ministry of Finance and State Administration of Taxation will begin making changes and modifications to relevant tax laws and regulations.

Chinese tax lawyer Liu Tianyong told Caixin that the abolition of tax benefits would be beneficial for anti-avoidance investigations and the fight against international tax avoidance.

“It was an outdated policy conceived during the period of planned economy. It should have been abolished a long time ago,” Liu said. “Tax breaks are especially unwise given that many foreign investors in China shift profits overseas. The new plan is more fair, as it ensures equal treatment of national and foreign investors.”

During its early period of economic reform and liberalization, China adopted tax incentives and special treatment to foreign enterprises and individuals to attract overseas investment. Since 2003, the government began to standardize taxation laws, especially in regard to foreign investors.

China Watch Blog has learnt that real estate tycoon Wu Yajun tops the list of seven Chinese self-made women billionaires with personal assets of 38 billion yuan (US$6 billion), Hurun Report said yesterday.

Wu, 48, founder and chairman of Longfor Properties Co, holds her position as the world’s richest woman despite a 10 percent shrinking of assets from a year earlier amid China’s tight controls over the property market.

“The position of Chinese woman entrepreneurs in the world is like China’s table tennis team,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher.

“They are the absolute number 1.”

The number of self-made women billionaires, with personal assets over US$1 billion, declined to 22 from 28 last year. Their average personal wealth fell 6.8 percent from a year ago to US$22 billion as the global economy encountered a strong headwind.

Chen Lihua, chairman of Fu Wah International Group, was second on the list with 34 billion yuan in assets. She was followed by Spain’s Rosalia Mera, founder of Inditex and known for its Zara brand, with US$4.4 billion assets.

J.K. Rowling, writer of the best-seller series Harry Potter, ranked 16th on the list with nearly US$1.3 billion.

In terms of nationality, Chinese women entrepreneurs made up for half of the 22 self-made billionaires, followed by five from the United States and three from Britain.

The real estate market remained the most important incubator with about 30 percent on the list founders of property companies. Twenty percent of the 22 billionaires are from manufacturing industries while another 14 percent are apparel makers, the report said.

On China’s mainland, 13 percent women occupy the 2012 Hurun Rich List, which was down 2 percentage points from a year earlier. The proportion of rich women from the property sector fell to 22 percent from 24 percent last year.

Hurun and Forbes have ranked China’s beverage tycoon Zong Qinghou, 67, as the wealthiest individual on the mainland.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Artsploitation Films, an ascendant American film distribution company, fulfills the promise it made earlier this year to bring edgy international movies to North American audiences with its debut release, GANDU.

Directed by Bengali filmmaker “Q” (Kaushik Mukherjee), this independent Indian film is a deliriously frantic, music-infused look at one poor young man and his dreams of becoming a rap star. GANDU (Hindi slang for “asshole”) is a bold and entertaining example of new Indian filmmaking that, ironically, is banned in India.

“When I started the label, I wasn’t sure exactly what kinds of titles I’d try to acquire. Then I saw Gandu,” recalls Raymond Murray, president of Artsploitation Films. “I left the theater thinking this is exactly the kind of film Artsploitation should champion: edgy, strange, exciting, sexy and controversial. It’s international, it’s drama, it’s an art film, it’s a hyperventilating genre film.”

On December 11, Artsploitation Films will release GANDU on DVD and VOD

GANDU had its international premiere in 2010 at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York City, where it won the Jury Award (Runner-Up) for Best Film. The following year, Q earned the award for Best New Director at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival. One of the most widely internationally screened South Asian films in recent years, GANDU appeared at film festivals in Berlin, Rome, Istanbul, Amsterdam, London, Helsinki, Singapore, Croatia and South Africa.

International reviews have praised the film: “A highly transgressive, visually spectacular assault on the senses” (Time Out London); “…Bengali thrash-metal rap musical Gandu grabs auds by the throat and gradually works its way down” (Variety); “Bold, energetic and by turns both deliberately vulgar and sharply incisive…a film that straddles a heretofore unnoticed line between Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting and Gaspar Noe’s Enter The Void” (Twitch).

Travis Crawford, an acquisitions consultant for Artsploitation Films, discusses GANDU’s fiercely anti-Bollywood attitude in the package’s liner notes: “The film isn’t just a rebellion against ‘Bollywood’ cliché, but rather an explosion of cinematic anarchy directed at the pedestrian nature of all of contemporary world filmmaking.”

China Watch Blog reports that so much has been written about positive thinking, and what does it really mean? Do you ever feel like everyone around you is succeeding, leaving you behind feeling unhappy and unsatisfied with your life? Don’t be that person who dreams of success but never quite gets there.

View of HK

As a successful chartered accountant and owner of his own accounting company, Patrick Daniel understands that real victory in the ‘business of life’ comes from achieving success both professionally and personally.

His inspiring book, Finding Your Road to Success – How to get there without getting lost (PDCA Publishing), shares a step-by-step approach to building roadmaps that lead straight to the top!

Patrick Daniel became independently wealthy by the young age of 30 – a fact that validates his credentials for writing a self-help motivational and inspirational book that is filled with great lessons, personal experiences, and strategically-placed quotes, from both unknown and famous individuals, that support tips to encourage readers to achieve goals beyond their wildest dreams.

While many of us work hard to reach success, we often get lost along the way for a variety of reasons. Finding Your Road to Success is interactive in the sense that it gets you thinking about your life. As you read, you find yourself analyzing exactly where you are in your life versus where you want to be; the more pages you read the more you discover who you are and what true success really means to you – and you get the tools to steer you in the right direction.

The author demonstrates how it’s possible for anyone to achieve success and he willingly shares the secrets to happiness, wealth and ultimate success in his book. Written in simple terms that make for easy reading, he uses entertaining stories from his own life experiences as lessons in this well-written, basic guide for anyone wanting to begin their journey on the path to a successful life.

Patrick’s mantra, ‘life is filled with solutions, not problems,’ is at the core of his ‘glass half-full’ attitude that makes Finding Your Road to Success a must-read for anyone needing a shot of optimism. A rarity of sorts, the author realized at a very young age that true success is achieving goals that go way beyond monetary and his book shatters all notions that success is a myth!

Patrick Daniel is a successful chartered accountant and owner of his own accounting company, author, featured radio guest, life coach, sought-after speaker, and an avid volunteer for numerous organizations and charities that benefit children and poor families.

China Watch Blog wishes to point out an big irony in China, which has one fifth the population in the world, with 1.35 billion people, but still hundreds and thousands of mall businesses in Guangzhou city, Guangdong Province cannot find workers, and jobs are going a-begging.

China Daily published two photos of CFP which illustrates this. See below.

Note the red job vacancy signs of small businesses in Guangzhou

Job recruiters, but few takers

Thousands of workers left for home before the Chinese Lunar New Year this year, and they decided to permanently stay at home instead of returning to uncertain fates in Guangzhou, where many thousand factories have closed down as orders were not forthcoming from the weak US economy and Europe which was embroiled in the Eurozone crisis.

Many factory owners have decided to either retire, sell of their businesses or simply close them down, as the original equipment manufacturers businesses were becoming scarce.

Those OEM businesses which progressed to original design manufacturing with their own brands and even own retail shops, or supplying to wholesalers are thriving.

Factory owners interviewed say that innovation is the key to survival, otherwise, the traditional OEM business that required little skill is slowly shrinking. Many such businesses have moved to neighbouring countries like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

China is moving towards more value added industries, and developing more skilled services industries. Others are turning to information technology and businesses involving IT.

China Watch Blog has learnt that since early May, the AKOYA has never ended flying. With an average of four days of flights per week, LISA Airplanes’ team could once more enjoy, and for the first time share, the AKOYA’s remarkable performance.

LISA Airplanes’ founders, Erick HERZBERGER and Luc BERNOLE were the first two passengers of the AKOYA. “To me, this first flight is both a professional and personal achievement. Our airplane’s performance goes beyond our expectations. I’ve flown many light aircraft in my life, so I can tell the AKOYA is incomparable. She behaves exceptionally well on water in terms of speed and easiness to take-off just as much as in terms of comfort brought by the airplane’s stability.

All the work done on the Seafoils turns to be a real success. After my first flight, I proudly announced to the team that the AKOYA is perfect.” tells Erick HERZBERGER, LISA Airplanes’ CEO and AKOYA’s first passenger.

During this series of test runs with passengers, and after years of research, studies, design and tests, LISA Airplanes’ team had the great pleasure to enjoy the advantages of its innovations. One after the other, team members got in the cockpit to live this priceless moment: a flight in the AKOYA. In various weather conditions, smooth lake or rough lake with 16 inches waves (40 cm) and 18 knots of wind, take-offs and landings were all made softly and on short distances. The sensations of flying in the AKOYA will remain unforgettable for all.

With this symbolic event, LISA Airplanes has gone through a major step towards AKOYA’s deliveries: the clients’ discovery of this seaplane.

Some of AKOYA’s future clients have been invited to go on board for a demonstration flight departing from Lake Bourget, at the side of the test pilot Gerald DUCOIN. AKOYA’s new pilots unanimously sung the comfort of the high-end finished cockpit and the in-flight qualities of the airplane.

Benoit SENELLART, LISA Airplanes’ VP of Development, attests this enthusiasm: “I‘ve been involved in every step of AKOYA’s development and the first delivery will be the most memorable. Therefore, it’s with great pleasure that I watched our clients’ first flight. Their feedbacks are all positive on the easiness to pilot as well as on the sensations in flight. They really appreciated the visibility, the comfort and the safe atmosphere of the cockpit. This flight definitely won them and I am delighted with that.”

The next demonstrations in-flight will occur from September on since the AKOYA is on its way for the United States where it will be exhibited for the first time at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in Wisconsin from July, 23-29 2012.

China Watch Blog reports that Chengdu, the capital city of China’s southwestern Sichuan Province, will host the Fortune Global Forum 2013, a conference for world leaders and business elites running from June 6 to 8, 2013.

This will be the fourth time the forum is held in China, but the first time for it to take place in the western region, whose development will be one of the focal points of the forum, the Shanghai Daily reported.

With the theme of “China’s New Future,” the 12th session of the conference will also take a close look at the evolution of China’s domestic economy and its emerging role in the global context, discussing the “China century,” resource solutions, innovation and technology, global finance and economic recovery.

“At a time when China is at the forefront of global business, Chengdu is the ideal venue for the next Fortune Global Forum,” Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune magazine, said at a press conference in Beijing today.

He described the city as a dynamic magnet for multinational companies and a leader in a wide range of industries from automotive and logistics to technology and services. Up to 212 Fortune 500 companies have set up their operations in Chengdu. And thirteen foreign banks have opened up branches there, the most among China’s central and western cities.

In 2010, Forbes magazine predicted Chengdu would be one of the world’s fastest-growing cities in the next decade. Citigroup and a think-tank with The Economist listed the city as the most competitive in central and western China.

Ge Honglin, mayor of Chengdu, said the forum attendants will see how a Chinese inland city coped with the world’s financial turmoil and accelerated its economic transformation.

“It will be an opportunity for the world to better understand Chengdu, and Chengdu to further integrate into the world,” Ge said.