China Speakers Bureau: April 2010

WorldExpo 2010 is more than about making money - Wang Jianmao

Wang Jianmao by Fantake via Flickr

Shanghai's Worldexpo is about to open and media are turning to our speakers at the China Speakers Bureau to get some more background, like professor Wang Jianmao in The National from Abu Dabi. The Worldexpo is more than just about what you see on the surface, he says:

Wang Jianmao, an economics professor at the CEIBS, says the point of expo is about more than just generating revenue or developing a part of the city. It is about projecting a new image of the city and the country.

“Shanghai is in a transition from manufacturing to services, especially financial services, so it is good for the world to come to the city,” Mr Wang says.

“It’s a message of opening and change. I think the expo may help the rest of the world to realise what has happened in China and what will happen in China in the future.”

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Wang Jianmao is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.

Starting a book publishing business

Image via Wikipedia

From the April newsletter of the China Speakers Bureau:

This month we have some exciting news from our own global offices, as we have started a new service to support our speakers in getting their books on the market. In April we signed our first book publishing contract with Warren Liu, who earlier published KFC in China: Secret Recipe for Success, both in English and Chinese.
Book publishing is changing fast, as the methods to control the publishing process by the authors themselves, in stead of a publishing house, have become very easy over the past few years.
What are the advantages of Publishing On Demand, or POD, as it is called in the jargon?
Publishing is faster: a professional publishing house takes at least six months to get a book on the shelves - if you are lucky; in POD you can do it within three months.
Distribution through Amazon and other onine book sellers is part of the deal
You are in full control of the look and feel of the book
You have full control of marketing and distribution of the book
You royalties through Amazon are higher compared to when you use a traditional publisher
Because of the low costs of the print process, your royalties can be higher - or you can lower the price of the book
So, when we started to think last year about our own book, A Changing China, we even did not bother to find a publishing house. And when we published that book, we looked at each other (virtually and over Skype, since we work on three different continents) and decided it would be a good idea to offer our newly acquired skills to our speakers. We discovered that POD does work, but still is not that easy. Art work, exploring new software applications, writing additional chapters, editing and guiding the book through the publishing process are elements of the publishing business, most authors do not want to be bothered with. So, we decided to offer this as a service.
We are not becoming a publishing house: we help our speakers to publish their own books, including an ISBN number and distribution through Amazon. That is also beneficial for our speakers' business. When you have written a book, when we can actually send that to potential clients, speakers do have an extra selling point. And we are of course happy to help them. When you are interested in this new service, do drop us a line.

No bubble in the real estate - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr

Shaun Rein continues his mission in explaining US audiences that China's economy not behaves in the same way like the US economy. Fears for a collapsing real estate market are misplaced, he tells CNBC. In residential real estate there is no bubble and prices might even increase. There is a problem in commercial real estate, but the government is dealing with that right now.
Click on the video for much more, on the job market and the likelihood of stock markets going up in the next six to 12 months.

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Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your conference? Do get in touch.

The US is not encouraging Chinese investments - Janet Carmosky

Janet Carmosky by Fantake via Flickr

Waiting for a challenging take on the relations between the US and China? Ask Janet Carmosky. In the new Forbes weblog on China, she explains why Chinese capital cannot be used to purchase assets in the US:

We need to get up to speed so we can get some dollars--and jobs--back. Getting deals packaged and offered properly to attract the money; and then convincing the Chinese to hire smart lawyers and accountants, to talk to the people through the press so there’s back-up when the dragon-slayers attack. It's a sizable cultural gap to span. Especially when a denied visa can send the whole thing into the bin.

Hear that crashing sound, Homeland Security? It' billions of yuan cascading into Australia.

More in Forbes.

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Janet Carmosky is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your conference? Do get in touch.

China’s Rise in an Innovation Economy - Zunaira Munir PhD

Zunaira Munir by Fantake via Flickr

By Zunaira Munir

China is working towards becoming an innovation-oriented country. Chinese President Hu Jintao outlined plans for building China into innovation-oriented country at a national conference on science and technology in Beijing in April 2006. "Companies would play a principal part in the innovation, while research institutes and universities across the country would assume a key and leading role in the innovation," he said.
To achieve innovation oriented culture Hu said, “China will embark on a new path of innovation with Chinese characteristics, the core of which is to practice innovation, seek leapfrogging developments in key areas, make breakthroughs in key technologies and utilize common technologies to meet urgent requirements in realizing sustained and coordinated economic and social development. Also, fund frontier technologies and basic research with a long-term perspective.” China put forward independent/ indigenous innovation as a national priority because it relied heavily on introduction of advanced, foreign technology for its technological development. The word independent emphasizes reliance on own strength to achieve innovation goals, namely to have own core technology and access to own intellectual property rights of innovative technology.

Specific goals and strategies for transitioning China into an innovation-oriented country have been defined. These include;
Specific goals for scientific and technological development for China:

· To boost manufacturing and information industries, raise agricultural production capacity, make breakthroughs in energy exploration, energy-saving and clean energy technologies and optimize energy infrastructure.
Specific strategies for achieving China’s goals include:
· Raising the capability of innovation. Center it on serving the economic and social development.
· Developing technologies of energy resources, water resources and environmental protection. Obtain intellectual property rights for key techniques in equipment manufacturing and information industries as breakthrough points for competitiveness.
· Developing recycling economy, making breakthroughs in pharmacy and key medical equipment, developing technologies for national defense, and building advanced scientist groups, research institutions and enterprises.
· Improving innovation-related laws, regulations and scientific and technological development plans.
· Creating a favorable financial environment for companies to conduct innovation.

The present National Innovation System of China is unique in that it is not only to build up a linking mechanism adaptive to the socialist market economy, but also to upgrade the country’s innovation capacity rapidly and to establish a number of S&T innovation bases that are internationally competitive within a period as short as possible. The Chinese government continues to introduce initiatives to facilitate interactions among the innovation players and also incentive systems for both science and industry to improve their innovation performance.
The result, what had mostly been seen as a manufacturing center of the world for a long time, China has started its move towards a future innovation economy and thismove has already triggered a gradual but substantial shift in the global systems of markets, knowledge, growth and profit centers.
Coupled with the fact that China is the most populated country and the fastest growing economy in the world with more than 1.6 billion inhabitants , China’s internal market demand is far too great to be ignored by the Western world, especially now because of China’s recognition of its own potential. There is a huge blue ocean potential to be realized in China’s growing economy. The question is how to effectively capitalize on this opportunity. It has now become imperative for western companies to value innovate, firstly , to create new demand for their products in the Chinese market and secondly to make competition from Chinese indigenous businesses irrelevant to developing their foothold in China.
Value Innovation is about simultaneous pursuit of high value for the buyers while pushing for a substantial drop in the cost structure of the industry. Any classical differentiation or low cost strategy that is built on a trade-off between innovative value and costs will not suffice. Success for western companies in China hinges on their ability to offer exceptionally high value for the Chinese buyers at a cost structure that is substantially lower than the low-cost indigenous Chinese model.
Companies need to reconstruct buyer value elements for the Chinese buyer while breaking the trade-off between differentiation and low cost . They need to conscientiously consider four key questions to challenge their industry's strategic logic and business model:

1. Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated?
This question forces you to consider eliminating factors that companies in your industry have long competed on. Often those factors are taken for granted even though they no longer have value or may even detract from value.
2. Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard?
This question forces you to determine whether products or services have been over designed in the race to match and beat the competition. Here companies over serve customers, increasing their cost structure for no gain.
3. Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard?
This question pushes you to uncover and eliminate the compromises your industry forces customers to make.
4. Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?
This question helps you to discover entirely new sources of value for buyers and to create new demand and shift the strategic pricing of the industry.

The first two questions give insight into how to drop your cost structure vis-à-vis competitors. The second two give you insight into how to lift buyer value and create new demand. It is through this simultaneous pursuit of high value and low cost that western companies can possibly create blue oceans of profitable and sustainable growth in China.

Dr. Zunaira Munir is a senior member of the Global Blue Ocean Strategy Network . She is an internationally acclaimed expert and speaker on Blue Ocean Strategy. She manages Strategize Blue, a Blue Ocean Strategy consulting and training firm in San Diego and works directly under Kim Chan and Renee Mauborgne, co-directors of INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute and authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, the book which launched a worldwide revolution in business strategy.

She is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need her at your conference, do get in touch.

CSB signs first book publishing contract

Warren Liu by Fantake via Flickr

The China Speakers Bureau has signed today the first book publishing contract with one of its speakers, Warren Liu. He wrote a first bestseller KFC in China: Secret Recipe for Success. He wants to build on that success and publish a second book on key success factors for doing business in China, analyzing a wide range of industries, but prefers to publish the book by themselves.
In our contacts with speakers - who are often also authors - we discovered that finding a publishing house is becoming harder. The book business is not going that well because of intense competition from other media, and to survive publishing houses have to focus on ever larger audiences. Through new POD or publishing-on-demand companies, authors can do all by themselves, but real life is not that simple. The new CSB-services offers a way to work around that problem and help authors to publish books that might not be commercial anymore in the current market situation. We help authors to publish themselves, including ISBN-numbers and distribution through Amazon, but we will not act as a publisher.
Also, some speakers just need a book they can use as a hand-out during their speeches and this new publishing service might help them to get just that - at an affordable price.
In theory everybody can do it themselves, but getting the editing, art work and actual publishing done need a bit of a learning curve. We went through that for A Changing China, and we are happy to share this with our speakers.
If you are interested in our rates and working procedures, do get in touch. Negotiation on a few more book deal are on their way, and we hope to announce new deals soon.

China reaffirms support for foreign investment - Xu Ping

Xu Ping by Fantake via Flickr

China continues to give support to foreign investment, writes Xu Ping, senior partner of King and Wood, China's largest law firm, in China's Law Insight. Xu Ping comments on the new investment rules, released by the State Council on April 13:

These new guidelines for foreign investment in China encourage foreign funds to flow into high-end manufacturing, hi-tech and eco-friendly sectors and to the central and western areas of the nation. The guidelines restrict investment into environmentally unsound projects and in sectors suffering from overcapacity. Meanwhile, the new guidelines also promise more favorable policies for foreign-funded companies, including an array of new tax incentives...

Through these new guidelines, China reiterates its support for foreign investment and could be a response to some complaints that China was reversing its foreign investment policies in the wake of several high-profile matters involving Google and Rio Tinto. These guidelines widen market access to foreign investors and better direct the inflow of foreign capital while also improving China's global competitiveness and promoting more efficient foreign investment into economically vital areas. Naturally detailed rules to implement these initiatives are still to come out.

More details here.
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Xu Ping is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you want her to share her insights at your conference, do get in touch.

China's booming luxury market - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr

Luxury consumer products are really doing very well in China, says Shaun Rein to Reuters.

Chinese consumers are buying an estimated $7.5 billion per year of luxury products and the market is growing 15 percent annually, said Shaun Rein, managing director of China Market Research Group, based in Shanghai.

And no Chinese city has indulged in as much luxury as Shanghai, its financial capital, which promises glitz and glamour as it gears up for World Expo 2010 next month....

"Luxury is really big in China, only not everyone is going to be a winner. Certain brands are getting all the sales," Rein said, noting a love of Louis Vuitton and Gucci.

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Shaun Rein is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your conference? Do get in touch.
Shaun Rein also contributed to our recently released book A Changing China. You can order the book online or ask for a review copy in pdf-format.

Low-hanging fruit in Asia does not need innovation - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean by Fantake via Flickr

Why are technology companies from Asia seldom very innovative? William Bao Bean, partner with Softbank China & India Holdings, tells Business Week the explanation is pretty simple.

"You need something revolutionary to come along in the U.S. to really make an outsize return," says William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner with Softbank China & India Holdings, a $105 million venture fund backed by Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Softbank. In Asia's big two countries, "you don't need to make a revolution," he says. "There's low-hanging fruit to be had.

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William Bao Bean is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your conference? Do get in touch.

The legacy of Tiananmen - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia by Fantake via Flickr

In A Changing China, the recently released book by the China Speakers Bureau, celebrity author Zhang Lijia recalls how she, as a worker in a missile factory in Nanjing, organized a demonstration to support the students in Beijing:

It’s been 20 years. Yet I remember vividly every detail of that day when I decided to organize a demonstration among the workers from my factory in support of the students in Tiananmen. It was Sunday, May 28, 1989, a week before the bloody crackdown.

The death of Hu Yaobang had triggered the spontaneous democratic movement. The popular former Communist Party Secretary General was ousted, in part for his sympathetic view towards the student protests. When the government rejected a request for his rehabilitation, the Beijing students marched towards Tiananmen, demanding greater freedom and democracy. Like a match thrown onto kindling, students from all over the country took to the streets. They were soon joined by citizens from all walks of life who were disgusted by wide spread corruption, nepotism and lack of personal freedom.

Not only Zhang Lijia contributed to our book, but another 16 speakers at the China Speakers Bureau, including Kaiser Kuo (Rocking into the future), Mark Schaub (A dead body in front of your office) and Janet Carmosky (Why China is different).
More in A Changing China. You can ask for a review copy in pdf-format here.

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Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. If you need her at your conference, do get in touch.

Rocking into the future - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo by Fantake via Flickr

Kaiser Kuo has been one of very few foreigners witnessing and participating over the past decades in China's rock scene.In the publication of the China Speakers Bureau, A Changing China, he uses it as a parallel of China's development:

The rock scene has followed roughly the same trajectory as the nation at large through these exhilarating years of reform and opening; from an ungainly and tentative naïveté in its early years, it has become increasingly confident and assertive. And rock’s vicissitudes in China have a similar mix of comedy, tragedy, drama and triumph found in China’s overall story. Rock has been a great lens through which to view China’s rush towards development.

After his first trips to China, in 1981 and 1986, he gets soon entangled into the rock scene, exploring his Chinese roots and - as a student - the basic start of Beijing rock:

As luck would have it, a Russian friend of ours named Dmitri told us about a music store in the Liulichang antiques district of Beijing. We headed down there after class one October afternoon. We walked into the store, Huacai, and were actually rather surprised by the selection of guitars and other gear. We started asking the floor manager, a tall man of about 30 with tobacco stained teeth, about the possibility of renting some equipment and perhaps a rehearsal space. The manager said this was all possible, but insisted that we first plug in and jam a bit, something we were more than happy to do. We picked out instruments, tinkered with the amps a bit, and then started knocking out old rock standards from bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC, switching off on guitar and bass. In very little time we drew a big crowd in off the street—curious onlookers, many of them obviously not from Beijing, gawking with expressions that would soon become very familiar to me.

More about this never-told story about Beijing's rock scene in A Changing China
Apart from a Beijing-based rock musician, Kaiser Kuo is now also one of the leading voices on the internet and the media in China. You can order the book "A Changing China" online or ask for a review copy in pdf-format.

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Kaiser Kuo is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.

The new empire: China in Africa - Howard French

Howard French by Fantake via Flickr

Talk to somebody in Africa, and in their second sentence they will mention China and the Chinese, diving into the economic possibilities of what long has been seen as a lost country. Howard French, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times in both Africa and China, was sent by The Atlantic to investigate:

All across Africa, new tracks are being laid, highways built,ports deepened, commercial contracts signed—all on an unprecedented scale, and led by China, whose appetite for commodities seems insatiable. Do China’s grand designs promise the transformation,at last, of a star-crossed continent? Or merely its exploitation? The author travels deep into the heart of Africa, searching for answers.

Not surprisingly, the article ends with a question too:

Africans’ attitudes toward China’s recent initiatives on their continent are perhaps inevitably riddled with ambivalence. Many African intellectuals bridle at Western criticism of China’s African full-court press. The West, they say, has long patronized their continent, and since the end of the Cold War, has subjected it to outright neglect. And all of that is true. But the question remains: How does their continent overcome a pattern of extractive foreign engagement—beginning with its first contact with Europe, when gold or slaves were acquired in exchange for cloth and trinkets—that is still discernible today?

Much more in The Atlantic.

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Howard French is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your conference? Do get in touch.

What Apple got wrong in China - Shaun Rein

Image representing Steve Jobs as depicted in C...

Steve Jobs via CrunchBase

Shaun Rein is a fan of Steve Jobs as a leader and has both his house and office stuffed with Apple applications. But unfortunately, Steve Jobs and Apple get it very wrong, when it comes to dealing with their suppliers in China, Shaun Rein writes in Forbes.

In the drive for ever fatter margins and lower product prices, Steve Jobs and Apple have forgotten to protect the quality of life of workers at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that manufactures products for them and other companies like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - news - people ) and Dell (DELL - news - people ). This year alone five Foxconn workers in China have committed suicide. Last year a worker killed himself after security officers accused him of stealing a prototype of an Apple iPhone and beat him. When a Reuters journalist tried, legally, to take photos of a Foxconn factory a few months ago, security guards ran out and beat him.

Now the shortage for qualified workers is increasing in China, employers might have to sacrifice some of their margins to improve salaries and life quality of their workers. In the end, that will not hurt the bottom line, says Shaun Rein.

More ethical companies tend to be better able to retain good workers. Nike( NKE - news - people ) figured that out. It came under heavy criticism in the 1990s for conditions at the sweatshops that made Air Jordans. In response, the company made moves to improve those conditions. The result? It still makes a ton of money, and now it's considered one of the world's best-behaved companies.

More in Forbes.

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Shaun Rein is also a speakers at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.

Most-sought speakers for April 2010

Janet Carmosky by Fantake via Flickr

Kaiser Kuo, the most quoted person in the Google/China brawl, has solidified his position in the top-10 most-sought speakers of April. A remarkable achievement, since Shaun Rein, our number two, has been beating his drum also in a major way in the mainstream media.
We can also report that the women are back in the top-10: both Zhang Lijia and Janet Carmosky made it into the top-10. While there is not doubt we have a solid batch of excellent female speakers, they rarely make it into this list, just like many other good speakers. Also Sergio Marchi made it into our top-10, adding to the new blood - at least at the bottom of our list.
Not surprisingly, most of those speakers also feature in our book A Changing China. While we would not suggest a one-on-one relations between their ranking and our book - we still have to enter the bestseller lists - the more speakers get into the public sphere, the more they are being sought as speakers.
Now, the listing for April 2010 (and between brackets March 2010)

1. Kaiser Kuo (3)
2. Shaun Rein (2)
3. Victor Shih (1)
4. William Bao Bean (6)
5. Arthur Kroeber (4)
6. Tom Doctoroff (8)
7. Rupert Hoogewerf or Hurun (7)
8. Janet Carmosky (-)
9. Zhang Lijia (-)
10. Sergio Marchi (-)

Five myths about China's economy - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber by Fantake via Flickr

Leading economic analyst Arthur Kroeber tackles in the Washington Post five myths many people have about China's economy. Some of the misunderstandings: China will overtake the US economy very soon. China is holding the US hostage through its huge amount of treasure bonds.
And the last one:

5. China's economy has grown mainly through the cruel exploitation of cheap labor.

Every time a developing economy starts growing fast, richer countries accuse it of "cheating" by keeping its wages and exchange rate artificially low. But this isn't cheating; it's a natural stage of development that comes to an end in every country, as it will in China. China has grown in much the same way as other economies we now view as mature and responsible success stories -- including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Those nations invested heavily in infrastructure and education, and quickly moved their workers from low-productivity jobs in rural areas to more productive jobs in cities. When rural labor was abundant, wages were low, but they rose rapidly after those surplus workers joined the urban labor force.

China is hitting that spot now: The number of young people of workforce entry age (15 to 24) is projected to fall by one-third over the next 12 years. With young workers more scarce, wages have nowhere to go but up. This is already happening: Last month, Guangdong province (China's main export hub) raised its minimum wage by 20 percent.

China still has plenty of workers moving from the countryside to the cities, but the age of ultra-cheap Chinese labor will soon be gone.

More arguments at the Washington Post.

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Arthur Kroeber is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.

The potential of the yachting industry - Rupert Hoogewerf

Hurun by Fantake via Flickr

Rupert Hoogewerf or Hurun - founder of the China Rich List - participated in the China (Shanghai)Boat Show 2010 to announce the 2010 Asian Marine and Boating Awards.In Sail-World he explained his optimism about the yachting industry in China:

'There is huge potential for the yachting industry in China. At present, there are 875,000 millionaires in China and according to our 2010 Best of the Best Survey, almost half of them dream of buying a boat' said Hurun Report founder Rupert Hoogewerf.

As yachts surge in popularity amongst wealthy Chinese, the Hurun Top 10 Marinas with Greatest Potential Awards recognise the Chinese Marinas with the most potential to develop into truly world-class facilities. They form part of the Asian Maritime and Boating Awards, which single out a range of domestic and international industry leaders for recognition.

The winners were:
2010 Asian Marine and Boating Awards

Top 10 Marinas with Greatest Potential
Longcheer Yacht Club
Visun Royal Yacht Club
Shenzhen Marina Club
Ningbo Leisure Boating Club
Nine Dragon Yacht Club
Suzhou Taihu Mercury Club & Marina
Qingdao International Yacht Club
Dalian Goldshore Yacht Club
Yacht Club on the Bund
Shangshan International Yacht Club

Marina with Greatest Potential New Star
Shanghai Yacht Club

For more and pictures of the event, click here

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Rupert Hoogewerf or Hurun is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do let us know.

Bright future for branding in China - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff by Fantake via Flickr

Overcapacity is hurting consumer articles in almost every part of the country, JWT's China CEO Tom Doctoroff told media in India on the side lines of a marketing conference. For that reason, branding has a bright future in the country. In Afaqs:

"China is a market where scale counts, big brands count, being present in every corner of every retail store counts," Doctoroff said. "The future is bright for branding in China." Chinese consumers need brands for "sanity and identity", he said.

Today, there are over 500 mobile phone models in China, which even penetrate rural areas. With an explosion in choices, there is a threat of disorientation and confusion. So, a brand brings about some amount of sanity with its organised way of operating, in a market that hates incivility and chaos, Doctoroff explained.

Furthermore, often for the Chinese, the 'clan' is more important than the individual. This denial of the individual is an opportunity for brands, which can become surrogate indicators that project identity, and thereby, touch hearts. "The younger generation in China, in particular, is modern, but doesn't argue with its boss; unlike India, I am told," grinned Doctoroff. "So, brands are perhaps one of the few of their ways to assert who they are."

Having described the positives of branding in China, he stated that the biggest challenge the market is facing is that of overcapacity. The facts speak for themselves, he cited - from 65 car models in 1999, there are now over 400; the supply of colour television sets is 250 per cent that of their demand, resulting in a 7 per cent drop in prices over the last three years.

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Tom Doctoroff is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.
Tom Doctoroff also contributed to our recently released book A Changing China. You can order it here or ask for a free review copy on pdf-format.

A speakers' scam at Queen Mary's

Queen Mary's by suburbanslice via Flickr

In the past few days, the China Speakers Bureau discovered that criminals were approaching some of our speakers for what proved to be a scam, involving names of faculty at Queen Mary, University of London. In an email message to those individual speakers - picked up from this website - they invite people over to London.
Fortunately, those speakers got our office involved and after some basic background checks, it proved to be a scam, trying to get deposits.
At Queen Mary's event organizers are taking steps to prevent misuse of their name, but in some cases financial losses have occurred, as speakers not only lost deposits, but also booked flights. The scam is only a few weeks in place, and at least four gmail addresses have been used. Of course, the criminals might also use names of other universities and faculty, or other institutions.
We have of course warned our speakers in an email to watch out for this scam, but we feel that a public warning is also in place. If you are not working through a professional speakers' agency, be advised that speakers never give deposits, its the event organizers who have to pay deposits, if money changes hands before the event itself. If you are approached, always get in touch with the event organizers, by phone or through their corporate email address.
If you need further information, do not hesitate to get in touch.

Update I: Both the websites at the William Harvey Research Institute and the Business School at Queen Mary's are warning against the scam. The note on the site of the business school dates already from November 2009, so the problem might be a bit older than "a few weeks", as they told us on the phone.
Update II: I'm not having a lot of time to investigate, but just walked into this similar scam, dating from last summer. Good to see Queen Mary's is also organizing many legit conferences.

The choice: huge inflation or bad loans - Victor Shih

Victor Shih by Fantake via Flickr

When the central government fails to rein massive spending at a local level, China might face an inflation of up to 15 percent by 2012, tells professor Victor Shih to BusinessWeek. The article focuses on Chongqing, the largest city in China in terms of population, and trying to get also its marks on the economy,
Local governments like Chongqing try to circumvent successfully efforts by the central government to stem government spending:

Chongqing, China’s wartime capital on the Yangtze River, is a prime example of how provincial governments multiplied the effect of the central government’s stimulus plan. The city had 900 billion yuan in loans and credit lines outstanding at the end of 2009, said Northwestern’s Shih. Chongqing’s economy expanded 14.9 percent last year, with investment in factories and property expanding the most in 13 years...

China’s local governments set up investment vehicles to circumvent regulations that prevent them borrowing directly. These vehicles borrow money against the land injected into them and guarantees by local governments, said Shih.

When the efforts of the central government fail, the consequences could be dear, Shih says.

The projects and their loans are stymieing efforts by Premier Wen Jiabao to curtail investment as inflation rose to 2.7 percent in February, a 16-month high. Failure to rein in local government spending could push inflation to 15 percent by 2012, said Victor Shih, a political economist at Northwestern University who spent months tallying government borrowing.

“Increasingly the choice facing the government is between inflation or bad loans,” said Shih, author of the book “Finance and Factions in China,” who teaches political science at the university in Evanston, Illinois. “The only mechanism for controlling inflation in China is credit restriction, but if they use that, this show is over -- a gigantic wave of bad loans will appear on banks’ balance sheets.

Victor Shih is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.

The China Speakers Bureau recently published A Changing China, with essays from 17 of its speakers on how China has changed in there eyes. You can order it online or request a review copy in pdf format.

The sustainable madness of the property market - Arthur Kroeber

Arthur Kroeber by Fantake via Flickr

According to any standard China's property market is acting crazy, but - tells Arthur Kroeber the Business Spectator - it might be "sustainable madness".
Kroeber:

“There is no question that much of it is irrational, but we tend to think the irrationality can last a fair bit longer than outside observers usually think.

“To boil it down to its essence, China's housing market is supported by the capitalisation of inner-city land values. So long as inner-city land can reasonably be capitalised, and a portion of the financial proceeds transferred to residents to subsidise their purchases of newer flats farther from the city centre, the apparent madness of house prices 10 times average household income can continue. This process is not infinitely extendable but we tend to think it can run for another three or four years.”

The other comforting fact, says Kroeber, is that personal leverage in China is very low, so that if there were a property price collapse it would not have the devastating effect on household balance sheets and confidence that the same thing in the US did in 2007-08.

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Arthur Kroeber is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your conference, do get in touch.

Friday, April 30, 2010

WorldExpo 2010 is more than about making money - Wang Jianmao