Recruiting in China

Shanghai Leads Office Worker Salary Rankings
Shanghai has topped a white-collar worker salary list of China's 24 largest cities, according to a report released by Zhaopin.com, a leading Chinese online job advertising site. The city's ¥7,112 monthly salary for white-collar workers is followed by Shenzhen's ¥6,787/month and Beijing's ¥5,453/month. The three highest paid industries in Shanghai are energy/mining (¥9,711), automobile (¥9,644) and petrochemicals (¥9,218). The three highest paid industries in Shenzhen are telecom (¥8,488), finance (¥8,240) and energy/mining (¥8,220). The three highest paid industries in Beijing are telecom (¥7,633), real estate (¥7,095) and finance (¥6,950).

PBOC's Zhou Says 20% of Local Govt Debts Are Risky
About 20% of China's local government financing vehicles are not profitable and are vulnerable to risks, Xinhua reported, citing central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan. Different from those funding major infrastructure and mortgages, 20% of local government financing vehicles are funding projects which are largely not profitable and the debts have to be paid with other incomes of local governments, according to Zhou. He called for further reforms to introduce new financing tools to ensure financial support for the country's urbanization.

Money Rate Rises Amid Inflation Concern
China's money-market rate rose to a one-week high after central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said the nation should be on high alert over inflation, Bloomberg reported. The CPI climbed to a 10-month high of 3.2% in February. The People's Bank of China will sell ¥18 billion of 28-day repurchase contracts Thursday, which will reduce the amount of cash in the system and stem the rapid monetary growth. The seven-day repurchase rate, which measures interbank funding availability, rose 0.06 percentage points to 3.08% as of 10:45am in Shanghai Thursday.

Power Usage Up 5.5% January-February
China's electricity consumption fell 12.5% year on year to 337.4 billion kW hours in February 2013 due to the Chinese New Year holiday, the National Energy Administration said. Between January and February, electricity consumption was up 5.5% to 789.2 billion kW hours, including 12.8 billion kW hours by the primary sector (up 4.3%), 552.8 billion kW hours by the secondary sector (up 4.2%), 106.8 billion kW hours by the tertiary sector (up 13.8%) and 116.9 billion kW hours by civilians (up 4.7%). A total of 6.48 million kW of new power generation capacity were installed during the two months, including 3.4 million kW of coal-fired capacity and 1.56 million kW of hydropower capacity.

Railroad Investment Jumps 26% January-February
Fixed-asset investment in China's railways totaled ¥37.63 billion in the first two months of 2013, including ¥25.14 billion in rail infrastructure, up 25.7% and 20.9% respectively from the same period of last year, said the Ministry of Railways, which is soon to break up and merge with the Ministry of Transport. The strong growth came after the investment in the sector remained sluggish throughout 2012 following a deadly high speed train crash in 2011. Chinese railways are expected to receive ¥650 billion in total fixed-asset investment this year, including ¥520 billion in rail infrastructure.

Deal-of-the-Day Turnover Exceeds ¥2.3b in January
Turnover at Chinese deal-of-the-day websites added up to ¥2.32 billion in January 2013, up 7.5% from a month earlier and up 72% from a year earlier, according to Tuan800.com, a site that collects information about such deals. 46.6 million people purchased deal-of-the-day coupons in January, up 4.4% from a month earlier and up 33.9% from a year earlier.