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Renminbie

April 14, 2009 by Chinatex 

Okay, i know there is no e in Renminbi, which means the people’s money, and not to be confused with OPP.  Remember when Vice President Dan Quayle spelled potato with an e, yeah “potatoe”.  He was ridiculed for the entire four years he was our illustrious vp and should have provided foresighte for what was to come with GW Bushe.  Kind of like how they add an extra e to massage here in the middle kingdom.  Being a linguiste, english major and purveyor of fei hua (bullshit for those of you who don’t speak chinese) I often correct them and tell them it is massage, not massagee.  No lucke so far.  I forgote what this blog poste is about  - need more fishee oil.   Old Chinatexe told y’all awhile back that companies importing and exporting from Guangdong Province would be allowed to settle transactions in the people’s money (RMB) in Hong Kong.  Shhhhh, this means we don’t have to sneake money over the border anymore!  Well, who knowse what it really means until the regulationsee are publisheed.  Check out the below articlee and the questionable spelling of program (programme) not to be confused with a schemee or pogrom.  Must have been written by Dan Quaylee.  Yee ha!!!  Chinatex.

Tsang set to outline Hong Kong’s role in renminbi clearing scheme

Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen is expected to explain Hong Kong’s role in the renminbi clearing scheme today after the State Council yesterday named Shanghai and four cities in Guangdong to take part in the pilot programme.

The State Council approved the scheme, which will allow exporters and importers in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Dongguan to settle cross-border trade deals in yuan. A Hong Kong government spokesman said: “We in Hong Kong have completed the necessary technical preparations for becoming the first place outside the mainland to operate the pilot programme. We will work closely with the relevant mainland authorities to ensure a smooth operation of the programme.”

Premier Wen Jiabao had pledged the nation’s support for Hong Kong, saying that plans had been drawn up for renminbi trade settlement in the city, to be implemented as soon as they had received approval from the State Council.

Yesterday, the council – presided over by Mr Wen – urged departments concerned to issue rules relating to the trial scheme as soon as possible. But Xinhua did not release details of the pilot scheme.

Yuan settlement was in accordance with market demand, said Cao Honghui, a researcher with the Institute of Finance under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), but increasing the yuan’s global acceptance would be decided by factors such as the nation’s economic development and improvements to the financial system.

Beijing has been arranging currency swaps with trading partners to bypass the US dollar in trade settlements. CASS economist Zhang Bin said these swaps would guarantee the progress of yuan settlement.

It was announced in December after a State Council meeting that companies in Hong Kong and Macau would be allowed to use yuan to settle trade in goods with partners in Guangdong and the Yangtze River Delta under a pilot programme.

Tax Heaven or Haven?

April 4, 2009 by Chinatex 

In case y’all were sleeping during the recent G 20 shindig in London, or you were so mesmerized by Barack Obama’s charm and willingness to love everyone, you might not of noticed the biggest thing to come out of the summit.  As always, Old Chinatex was not sleeping, and only mesmerized by Sarkozy’s wife – for a few minutes.  I was looking out for all of you and that is why I didn’t miss the most important thing – the communique (fancy word for a memorandum of understanding).  At the end of the Summit the leaders agree to a bunch of stuff and sign a document on what they agreed to – communique.  While the U.S. and EU are spending themselves into irrelevancy, they are also looking for all the tax money they can steal from their citizens and have been bullying other countries into releasing confidential data on their citizens bank accounts – so they can legally take the money.  Looks like China would not be bullied.  Read the below articles and you’ll see what Old Chinatex found so important.  Hope you all are able to avoid as much taxes as possible.  Yeeha!!  Chinatex

Leaders see end to banking secrecy

By Alex Barker and Vanessa Houlder in London and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

Published: April 2 2009 19:56 | Last updated: April 2 2009 19:56

Leaders of the G20 nations on Thursday declared that “the era of banking secrecy is over”, Maybe not just yet!! calling for the immediate publication of a list of countries that fell short of international standards.  A blacklist of countries that were unwilling to co-operate on information sharing ran to six countries as talks began on Thursday. But the threat of being named convinced Brunei, Guatemala and Malaysia to agree to begin implementing reforms. This left Costa Rica, the Philippines and Uruguay to be “named and shamed” on a list, expected to be published by the Paris-based OECD.

The politicians threatened to take action against “non-co-operative jurisdictions, including tax havens”, asking the OECD to report back by November’s meeting of finance ministers in Scotland. They said: “We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems so that we can steal money from our own citizens to pay for our incompetence.”

The blacklist is likely to prove highly controversial although most of the offshore financial centres that have been the target of criticism are contained in a second list. This names about 38 countries that have promised greater transparency but not yet signed agreements, ranging from countries such as Panama that apparently committed to greater transparency years ago to jurisdictions such as Singapore and Switzerland, which have only recently announced plans to become more ttransparent.

A lawyer dismissed the mooted blacklist as a “face-saving exercise, with mainly inconsequential players.” Maybe, but it is the small crack in the wall that the thieves in government will use to drive a wedge and open up the coffers.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France who pushed hard for the blacklist said the results of the summit were “beyond what we could have imagined . . . We are all happy with the results.”  Not so happy indeed because you don’t have the power or leverage to make China bend to your pressure and you never will.  See the article below if you want to know how happy Sarkozy was.  Seems the U.S. president had to bail them out once again.

US officials said that Barack Obama had helped broker a compromise over offshore centres between Hu Jintao, China’s president, and Mr Sarkozy, who had threatened to walk away from the summit.  The politicians faced difficulty in finding objective criteria to single out jurisdictions that do not currently exchange tax information, given the insistence from China that Hong Kong was not targeted and the resistance of European Union members to putting European countries on the list.

For an hour, Mr Sarkozy and Mr Hu argued about tax havens, US and European sources in the conference room said. Mr Sarkozy wanted the final G20 communique to endorse a list of global tax havens – maybe even including Hong Kong and Macau. The sources said Mr Hu appeared angry that Mr Sarkozy was effectively accusing China of lax regulation, and that the French leader was asking China to endorse sanctions issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a club of wealthy nationsBeijing has yet to join. The G20 gave the OECD the task of compiling the list of tax havens.

Accounts from White House officials, corroborated by European and other officials also in the room, said Mr Obama escorted both men, one at a time, to a corner of the room.  “Let’s get this all in some kind of perspective, guys,” he said. He tapped Mr Sarkozy on the shoulder and, along with each man’s economic adviser and translator, suggested a change. How about replacing the word “recognise”, Mr Obama suggested, with the word “note”?

When Mr Sarkozy concurred, Mr Obama invited Mr Hu to the corner and asked what he thought.  Within an hour, the other participants looked over to see Mr Obama, Mr Sarkozy and Mr Hu sealing the agreement with handshakes. The haggling had continued until five minutes before the summit closed.  Oh, that Barack Obama, what a great guy!!  I am so happy that now Americans are loved all over the world again and I don’t have to call myself a Canadian anymore.

In the end, Hong Kong and Macau did not even appear on the list of tax havens. Instead, they were referred to in the form of a notation, which said China’s special administrative regions had only “committed to implement” the appropriate tax standards, although they had yet to substantially do so.  This is the important part and good for all of us doing business in Asia 

GPS on your cellphone

March 25, 2009 by Chinatex 

I just read this article and want to share with all of you.  Old Chinatex’s sources tell him this is serious stuff.  As I always say, China is different, they have a different system and government than most of our countries.  But China is cool and there is a lot of opportunity here.  Respect China and their rules and you will be cool too and won’t have to call me for help.  Yeeha!!! Chinatex

There is no U in labor

March 13, 2009 by Chinatex 

In the event any of you were hoping for some relief in the form of a complete revocation of the labor laws, I hate to tell you that it’s not going to happen. Remember that the purpose of the new labor laws, effective January 2008, was not to cripple your manufacturing, trading and other businesses in China, but to build a new market for hungry labor lawyers.  Maybe not, but really the purpose was to eliminate the many factories that were playing too far outside of the grid.  You know what i mean by this – they were not paying taxes, not paying their employees a decent wage and the profits were being sucked out of China to Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries.  While in some ways the labor law might have gone a little far, as the pendulum often does, it is here to stay as evidenced by the following article.  Bottom line as old Chinatex tells his clients, make sure you have a contract with all of your employees and follow the labor law or you will end up calling me when one of the hungry Chinese lawyers or a disgruntled employee files a claim against you.  Hope your 2009 is going well.  Yeeha!!  Chinatex

Changes ruled out to Labour Contract Law

Top lawmaker denies legislation is placing a significant cost burden on businesses

NPC & CPPCC
Cary Huang in Beijing 
Mar 10, 2009  

No change will be made to the controversial Labour Contract Law because it has had nothing to do with the widespread failures of exportoriented small and medium-sized firms in coastal regions, as entrepreneurs have claimed, a senior lawmaker said.

While factory owners decried the law as a crippling cost burden, workers hailed the new legislation.  The law unleashed a flood of arbitration and labour dispute cases in manufacturing hubs, such as Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta, where many migrants work.

Recently, representatives of Hong Kong’s battered exporters embarked on a three-day trip to Beijing to step up efforts to lobby for an amendment to or a relaxed implementation of the law, to create a more investor-friendly environment.  Some regional governments have gone ahead and relaxed implementation of the law over fears that stringent execution would lead to more factory closures amid the worsening economic environment.

But Ms Xin flatly ruled out such a possibility.  ”[We] will not amend the law because of the economic crisis because there is no connection between the crisis and [the enactment of ] the Labour Contract Law,” she told a news briefing on the sidelines of the NPC session in Beijing.

Chen Wei, vice-president of the China Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, said the government should relax somewhat the implementation of the law, in view of difficulties faced by SMEs. He also dismissed Ms Xin’s claim that the law led to a 2 per cent increase in costs, saying some of the association’s member firms claimed that they had seen costs increase as much as 10 to 20 per cent.

There is growing anecdotal evidence of a strain on the mainland’s labour laws, a reflection of the difficult task the government faces in balancing economic growth and social stability during the downturn.

Official data also indicated a growing number of labour lawsuits since the enactment of the controversial law.  Supreme People’s Court executive vice-president Shen Deyong said labour disputes had nearly doubled last year, compared with 2007, because of the economic downturn and the Labour Contract Law.

The national figure had increased by 95 per cent year on year, and the number nearly tripled in some eastern and southern coastal cities during the period, Mr Shen said recently.  However, Ms Xin argued that the enactment of the law had helped keep relations between employers and employees stable during the downturn.

It’s privacy not piracy…. or is it?

February 17, 2009 by Chinatex 

Old Chinatex has often warned his friends and clients about the dangers of unsecure computer networks and allowing employees, children, and others to visit certain websites.  The internet is really cool and has opened the world in ways that could not have been imagined when it was created by Al Gore!  However, governments and othere nefarious characters are able to use it to access personal and confidential information.  Facebook has reasons for their new policy that they will never disclose to the public.  I’ve often warned y’all about Facebook and I hate to say “I told you so” so i won’t, just check out the below article and if you are running a company, make sure your network security is solid.  Yeeha Chinatex! 

Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint

The backlash against Facebook’s updated privacy policies is about to expand. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is preparing to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over thesocial network’s updated licenses, PC World has learned.

“We think that Facebook should go back to its original terms of service,” says EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg.

EPIC expects to have its complaint submitted to the FTC by the end of Tuesday.

Wide-Reaching Reaction

The wave of reaction, of course, is hardly limited to official organizations. More than 38,000 Facebook users have joined a user group protesting the change, and countless blogs and news sites havewritten extensively about their concerns. The issue comes down to a couple of alterations within the company’s terms of use that, it would seem, give Facebook eternal ownership of your personal content–even if you decide to delete your account.

The changes were actually made in early February but not widely noticed until Sunday, when The Consumerist’s Chris Walters stumbled upon the subtly shifted language. The section in question explains how Facebook has an “irrevocable, perpetual” license to use your “name, likeness, and image” in essentially any way, including within promotions or external advertising.

That clause, Walters noted, wasn’t new. What had changed was that a sentence at the end of the paragraph was now mysteriously missing. The deleted line stated that the license would “automatically expire” if you removed your content. With that line omitted, Facebook’s license to use your content is simply “perpetual” and “irrevocable,” even decades after you delete your stuff.

Damage Control Doubt

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has attempted to calm the concerns, posting a blog entry stating that “people own their information” and that Facebook “wouldn’t share [it] in a way you wouldn’t want.”    As an example of why the controversial clause is needed in its updated form, Zuckerberg explains that even if you were to delete your account, any messages you had sent to a friend would still remain in his inbox–so Facebook requires the expanded rights to make sure that could happen.

Isn’t that a far cry, though, from anything that’d warrant retaining a “perpetual” license to “use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, [and] adapt” any content you’ve ever uploaded, including the option to “use your name, likeness and image for any purpose”?

Something doesn’t quite add up.

Social Network Comparisons

Hey, maybe I’m misreading this. Could Facebook just be catching up with social network standards? Could everyone be overreacting?

Turns out, no. MySpace’s terms of use agreement grants the company the license to use your non-private content only within MySpace-related services. Moreover–and perhaps more important–MySpace notes that once you delete something from its site, it “will cease distribution as soon as practicable, and at such time when distribution ceases, the license will terminate.”

With Twitter, the company’s terms of service state it “claim[s] no intellectual property rights over the material you provide” and that “you can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account.”

Even YouTube, owned by privacy advocate punching bag Google, limits its license to use your content at will. The license will “terminate within a commercially reasonable time after you remove or delete your user videos,” the service’s terms of service say.

Facebook’s neverending lease on your online life, then, isn’t exactly the norm. Perhaps you can take comfort in the fact, though, that Facebook could change its policies again without ever telling you. “We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change or delete portions of these terms at any time without further notice,” Facebook’s agreement says. “Your continued use of the Facebook service after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new terms.”

Well, that’s at least reassuring. Anyone else having Beacon flashbacks right now?

On the labor front

February 10, 2009 by Chinatex 

This just in from the central government.  Looks like it will need some clarification which we may or may not receive.  If you have more than 20 employees or will lay off more than 10% of your staff, you should know about this new regulation.  Remember that it isn’t always about getting on the wrong side of laws and regulations that are not very clear, it can also be about being in the crosshairs of a new breed of hungry Chinese lawyers.  Be careful out there.  Yeeha Chinatex!

Companies to inform govt of layoffs 30 days prior

By Chen Jia (China Daily) February 11, 2009

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-02/11/content_7463470.htm

As layoffs and labor disputes become frequent with the global economic slowdown wiping out more businesses, the central government yesterday told employers to inform trade unions of their plans of mass layoffs at least 30 days in advance.

If a company plans to layoff more than 20 employees, or over 10 percent of the total staff in one go, it must submit written reports to the local labor and social security department 30 days prior to the action, the State Council said in a statement issued on its official website (www.gov.cn) yesterday.

The State Council emphasized that priority should be given to ensure the legal rights of the employees.  Priority should be given to ensure the legal rights of employees!

Moreover, employers should not  does this mean have to?  refuse to pay for social insurance as long as the working relations still exist, it said.

Local labor officials should keep a watch on such companies to ensure employers do not flee or postpone wages and insurance payment, it said.

Mo Rong, deputy chief of the labor science research institute under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said stable employment should be the top priority under the current financial circumstances.”In the long term, mass layoffs are not good for the development of an enterprise,” he said.

The government has launched a series of favorable policies “to either reduce or postpone five types of social security insurance fees to give private enterprises some relief”, he added.

“The State Council’s notice reiterated the regulation of Labor Law, and it is a good reminder to both enterprises and employers,” Li Kui, a lawyer of the Beijing-based Yingke Law Firm, told China Daily.

“But I hope the regulation would be further clarified, as different scales of companies and official organizations that manage layoffs need to be more clear,” he said.

Meng Qinghuan, an employer of a Beijing-based fund management company, said he was doubtful if the new regulation would be implemented successfully.

“Some small enterprises have no ability to anticipate the crisis and go bankrupt overnight,” he said.

Some good news

February 10, 2009 by Chinatex 

Here’s a good story about good people being entrepreneurial in China.  They are also friends of old Chinatex and indeed Angels.  Read the story below or click on the link.  Otherwise things are fast and furious here in the wild east as Chinese New Year has officially ended and people from all over the world are looking to the Chinese economy to carry them through these tough economic times.  Old Chinatex’s email is bursting with inquiries from people wanting to tap this market.  As I tell them all, be patient, invest in relationships, understand China and of course – get a good lawyer.

Yeeha!!  Chinatex.

http://paper.sznews.com/szdaily/20080205/ca2885176.htm

Time to get back to business

February 1, 2009 by Chinatex 

The Chinese New Year holiday is officially over.  Just take a look at all these people heading home from the long holiday at a train station in China.  I’m glad I am not in that line and that it’s over. But that doesn’t mean that the fireworks are going to stop going off outside of my bedroom window.  It seems that no matter what floor old Chinatex lives on, the fireworks explode just outside my window.   6th floor, 26th floor, just like everything else annoying here, it’s planned to mess with the foreigners. You know, C *O* N spiracy.  There hasn’t been a lot of news during the holiday but I thought this article below is interesting and speaks for itself.  Steelers 20 Arizona 12 my prediction for the Super Bowl, which we will be watching at 7:20 a.m. and of course we won’t be drinking because it’s a workday – another conspiracy putting the Super Bowl on a workday.  Yee ha!!  Chinatex

Divorce verdicts witness changing Chinese life

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-28 11:31

 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-01/28/content_7430280.htm

From daily necessities in late 1970s to nowaday’s house and stock ownership, the list in property settlement verdicts in divorce proceedings have vividly echoed changing concept of the Chinese on marriage and property.

“Property settlement in divorce cases is becoming more complicated,” Hu Jianyong, a judge with the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court, told the Beijing Daily.

A recent case handled by Hu involved several real estate properties, debts, stock, and some sporadic investment, and the litigation object exceeded 50 million yuan (US$7.31 million).

A verdict meted out by the local court in 1983 showed a contrasting picture:

A cupboard, a cocktail cabinet, a table, a clothes-rack, a suitcase, a mosquito net, a basin, eight plates, five quilts, two pillows, two pillow covers, a blanket, a bedspread, two shirts, one cotton-padded clothes, two trousers, and three pairs of shoes belong to the plaintiff; while the rest property in the room, including a electric fan, two chairs, a bed, and two dictionaries belong to the defendant.

The defendant was also responsible for 500 yuan of the family’s 730-yuan debt, the verdict reads.

The list, representing all the family belongings, was too simple for youngsters nowadays to believe, Hu said.

“30 years on, it’s no longer a luxury for ordinary Chinese people to own property such as an apartment and a car,” Hu said.

“In the 1980s, the court focused mainly on ruling whether the couple should be divorced,” said Li Junye, another judge of the court. “We can often see a pan or a bowl on the list of property settlement verdicts.”

“But now, with the increasing private property value, the disputes gradually shifted to partition of houses or other more valuable items,” Li said.

“People seem to care less about who owns the television or washing machine.”

Divorce is traditionally discouraged in China.

In late 1970s, some divorce cases might drag on for one or two years, according to Li. “The court got to be cautious for fear some divorcees might commit suicide because of social pressure.”

But as the women become more independent financially, with divorce procedures now much simplified, and attitudes to divorce and divorcees becoming more tolerant, the number of divorces has been rising since 1980 when the figure was 341,000.

“Now we can mete out verdict even in a day if the couple reach a consensus on child raising and property settlement,” Li said.

About 1.4 million couples divorced through civil affairs bureaus across the country in 2007, a year-on-year increase of 18.2 percent, latest figures from the Ministry of Civil Affairs showed.

There were 694,000 court-sanctioned divorces in the same period, according to the ministry.

Chinese people can now marry or divorce much more easily as employers do not have to be notified or asked to provide recommendations on the suitability of an employee’s marriage plans.

Reflections on lucky 08

January 14, 2009 by Chinatex 

Disclaimer:  There is no legal information or advice in the following blawg so please don’t expect any free information from Chinatex.

2008 was an interesting year in China.  It began with migrant workers and many others stranded at the bus and train stations prior to the New Year holiday.  Not merely thousands of people, but millions.  Imagine a million people stuck at Chicago O’Hare and the toilets, that’s why I always fly through SFO.  China mobilized the police and the army and the railroad tracks and highways were cleared of ice and snow and people got on their way, but it could have been way worse than Katrina.  Here is a pic of people waiting to buy tickets in Beijing just to give you an idea of the size of the annual migration.I was thinking that maybe we should use our army to help our own people in the U.S. during natural disasters.  But it’s probably a silly idea.  It was really cold here in sub-tropical China, even the palm trees were frozen, in addition to my hands and feet and nose  - which has to stick out from under the covers to breathe.  You can’t get warm in south China in the winter as we don’t have heat in the houses because of global warming or because they can save some money by not including much needed heat!  Concrete and cinder block are excellent insulators – imagine living inside of a refrigerator for a month.  It’s been a low of 7 degrees for a few weeks.  I still don’t know how cold that is, the whole Celsius thing, but I could hang meat in my apartment.

Anyway, shortly after everyone returned to their jobs from the New Year holiday and began thawing out from the winter, China had an earthquake in Sichuan province.  Official estimates place the death toll at more than 200,000 people.  I can’t remember how many died on 9-11, maybe 1% of that number?  Mother nature, the ultimate terrorist.  Once again the army came in and did their best to help everyone, and Premier Wen went to the site and implored those still stuck in the rubble to hold on.  This reminded me of when Dick Cheney went down to New Orleans and……. or was that Texas, and shot his friend while hunting.

Then to make things even more difficult for this tiny little up and coming country, people tried to mess with the Olympic torch relay.  ”Crazies with nothing else to do”, as my mother would say, tried to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher.  Little did they know that the torch is made at the same factory as those trick birthday cake candles that I hated as a kid.  Little did they know that their efforts would only galvanize a little up and coming nation of close to 2 billion people.  They even borrowed my home’s slogan, “Don’t Mess With China”.

Then, on 8-8-08, an auspiciously lucky day, and after all the bad press and nonsense that China had to endure, the Olympics kicked off with a bang.The acclaimed director Zhang Yimou gave the world the most incredible opening ceremony ever and Steven Spielberg, who quit the team early on was given a schooling on how things are done.  Wow!, the opening ceremony was like nothing I had ever seen and made me share a pride for this country that I have felt for mine during similar events.  I had the pleasure of going to the Water Cube and the Birds Nest and even watching Phelps break a couple of world records and I even got to watch the closing ceremony at Hooters in Beijing with 20 cute little hooterless girls and a bunch of cool Chinese friends.

Then in late September Old Chinatex had an accident and broke his neck, and a few other bones.  While it hurt, I wasn’t stuck under a collapsed school nor did I lose my only child in the earthquake.  In fact, I was lucky because during my time lying on the cement, in the hospitals and even after, I had many friends and family look out for me, take care of me and just be good friends.  I even had clients come and visit me and not one of them pulled the plug!!  That’s a lawyer joke for any of you without lawyers.  An accident like I had, puts everything in perspective and gives you a dose of reality that no matter how crazy this world is, and it is indeed, if we have family and friends we have it all – except for heat in sub-tropical China.

Then, while I was recovering from my accident and only two weeks out of the hospital, my friend’s sailboat Authority, won the HKPN class of the second China Cup Regatta.  I wasn’t able to crew but I brought KFC and beers everyday after they finished and ours was the funnest boat in the marina.  All in all Authority, which was sponsored by the great people at Thinkpad, won all but one race, collected 3 trophies including 1st place overall in it’s class.  I was happy to be part of a great crew and make new friends.  Here’s a picture  of Team Thinkpad accepting the first place trophy.  

So now I sit in my refrigerator during another obvioius example of global warming – “can somebody tell me why we still have winter?” – and freeze my emaciated ass off.  I can’t find an outlet for the heater.  There is only one in the entire living room, another obvious effort to save 3 Yuan (about 50 cents or .30 euros for those of you in Macedonia).  So i stare at the heater and ask it if it is feeling as cold as me, it doesn’t respond.  I imagine the Titanic floating across the top of my coffee – “near, far, wherever you are….”

It’s a slow time for news in China as everyone prepares for the Lunar New Year holiday and the rest of the world reels from a global economic meltdown.  I’ll share developments from the jungle as they arise.  For now, I hope everyone has safe and warm travels, can stop to appreciate their family and friends and has as great a 2009 as I had in 2008.

Yeeeha!!  Chinatex

The PRD

January 8, 2009 by Chinatex 

I was wondering if the phenomenon of speaking about oneself in the first person is limited to U.S. athletes or if it happens in other countries where I can’t understand what they are saying, like the English Premier League.  The reason I was thinking this is because Chinatex told y’all (you all) last year that changes were in the future for the Pearl River Delta (PRD).  The PRD is basically southern China consisting of Guangdong province, Macau and Hong Kong and has been called the world’s factory.  Just drive or take the train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and you will know what old Chinatex means. Anyway, Chinatex told you that the new labor laws and changes in foreign investment rules and cross border capital flow were just the foundation for big things in the PRD and that easier and cheaper trade is the goal.  Maybe even free trade and elimination of VAT and other duties.  Now, Chinatex doesn’t have a direct line to the policy makers, but these articles below will give you an idea of what’s to come.  For those of you planning to enter China and those of us already in the PRD, Chinatex can only imagine the possibilities.  Yee ha!  Chinatex

PRD repositioned as China’s ‘reform test field’

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-08 11:30

 http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-01/08/content_7379716.htm

Pearl River Delta, the former vanguard of China’s economic reform, will stand to be the new test field for the country to deepen economic reform and open itself wider to the outside world, the country’s top economic planner said Thursday.  Under a plan released Thursday by the National Development and Reform Commission, the delta together with Hong Kong and Macao will be forged into “a globally competitive” and “the most vigorous area in the Asia-Pacific region” by 2020.

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