Recruiting in China

BEIJING, (Xinhua) -- The Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has launched a project to make 100,000 college graduates over fives years to work in villages.

The Organization Department will work closely with the ministries of education and finance and the new ministry of human resources and social security to select competent graduates.

Graduates who pass written, oral and physical tests will be dispatched to work as assistants to heads of CPC branches and directors of village committees.

They will be responsible for helping farmers with agricultural technology, raising health awareness and skills, promoting cultural activities and also researching farmers' complaints.

The graduate's specialties will be an important reference for the consideration of selection.

The CPC will offer a three-year contract with adequate insurance to selected graduates with bachelor and master degrees. The monthly salaries will vary with the length of service.

Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department, urged Party officials at local levels to provide an appropriate environment for the work and lives of graduate workers.

Li said the project was a strategic move for the CPC to train reserve cadres who were acquainted with rural areas.

All qualifying tests to be held during the selection should be transparent to ensure fairness.

Graduates who complete the three-year service will have priority for consideration in civil service post in governments at all levels. Service in rural areas will be added to their accumulated length of service.

The Ministry of Education said the number of college students graduating this year will reach a record 5.59 million, 640,000 more than last year.

GUANGZHOU, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Nestle opened a new ice cream plant in south China on Wednesday, demonstrating its aim to further develop the Chinese market.

The 22,000-sq-m factory, in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, will increase the food and drink giant's annual ice cream productivity to 64 million liters, three times the output from its old facilities.

The plant, involving 250 million yuan (about 35.6 million U.S. dollars) in investment, will help Nestle to promote its high-end ice cream brand in south China and meet the growing consumer desire for ice cream products, said Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman and CEO of the Nestle Group worldwide at the opening ceremony.

Nestle, the world's largest food company, has opened 20 factories in 17 regions across China since it entered the market two decades ago, employing more than 13,000 people.

The Swiss-headquartered group said earlier this month that it expected underlying sales to rise in 2008 at a similar rate to 7.4percent last year, a big jump from its long-term growth target of between 5 and 6 percent.

YAHOO! Inc's China unit will cut workers after the Internet search site failed to narrow the gap with the country's market leader, Baidu.com Inc.

The Yahoo! unit will dismiss "fewer than 100" employees, Porter Erisman, a spokesman for Alibaba.com Corp, which operates the search site in China, said yesterday.

Yahoo! has lost share in China's Internet market, the world's second biggest, as Baidu and Google Inc introduced services including online map searches and spreadsheets.

Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo!, which has reported seven straight quarters of declining profit, said in a statement on January 21 that it will "eliminate some areas of the business."

Baidu's market share in China rose to 60 percent in the fourth quarter from 58 percent a year earlier, while Google's climbed to 26 percent from 17 percent, according to researcher Analysys International.

Yahoo's share fell to 9.6 percent from 13 percent, Analysys said.

The Shanghai municipal government yesterday announced a 14-percent increase to the minimum wage in a bid to help those on low incomes better cope with the rising cost of living.

The monthly rate will be increased from 840 yuan ($120) to 960 yuan, with effect from Tuesday.

This is the second increase in five months in Shanghai, whose minimum wage is now the highest in the country.

"Inflation has had a big impact on people on low incomes in Shanghai," Bao Danru, director of the municipal labor and social security bureau, said.

"That's why we have introduced the largest increase for several years."

Shanghai's unemployed will also get up to 70 yuan more a month, taking the average payment to between 410 yuan and 550 yuan. The actual amount depends on the person's age and number of unemployment insurance contributions they have paid, Bao said.

City dwellers living below the poverty line, or unable to work, will be given an additional 50 yuan a month, he said. Government aid for people in urban areas will rise from 350 yuan to 400 yuan a month, while non-urban dwellers will get 3,200 yuan per year, up from 2,800 yuan.

Currently, 339,400 people who work in the city and 118,300 non-urban workers receive aid from the Shanghai government, Bao said.

All of the wage and benefit increases will come into effect on Tuesday, he said.

Over the past year, inflation in China has risen steadily.

Zhang Zheren, deputy director of the municipal civil affairs bureau, said: "Since April, the price of food, especially pork, has risen considerably."

South Africa will increase its investment in China this year to strengthen the economic ties between the two fast-growing emerging markets, said a South African minister.

"We would like to increase our investment in several sectors such as automotive and energy," Rob Davies, deputy minister of South Africa's department of trade & industry, told China Daily.
South Africa's investment in China hovered around $700 million in 2006. The figure for 2007 is not yet available.

These investments mainly went to breweries, hotels and the energy sector. The biggest investments have been made by South African giants such as MIH, SAB Miller and Sasol, who are striving to expand their presence in China.

Multinational media giant MIH, which already has stakes in several newspapers in China, including the Beijing Youth Daily, Titan Weekly and Anhui Daily, is eyeing the mobile TV market in China as the country is poised to launch the facility before the Olympic Games.

Energy tycoons Sasol and Anglo-American are also accelerating their billion-dollar projects in China, one in coal-to-petroleum and another in coal chemicals. SAB Miller, one of the world's largest breweries, is looking for more opportunities after its joint venture in China acquired five local brands in the 2006 fiscal year ended March 31.

Sources said major South African banks such as ABSA and Investec are initiating a China fund aimed at investment opportunities in the world's fastest growing economy.

"The scale of the fund will be larger than any investment South African companies have ever made in China," a source said.

China has invested thrice as much in South Africa as the latter in China, Davies said. Most of the rapid increase in Chinese investment has come through China's largest lender ICBC's takeover of a 20 percent stake in South Africa's Standard Bank. The $5.46 billion deal was completed on March 4.

"Trade and economic cooperation is a major strategic area in the cooperation framework of South Africa and China," said Davies.

This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the two countries' diplomatic relations.

Bilateral trade has developed over the past decade from a negligible figure to $9.86 billion in 2006, according to statistics of the Ministry of Commerce. China is now South Africa's second largest source of imports after Germany and its sixth largest export market.

"The trade imbalance between two countries has been largely improved," said Davies, adding South Africa's exports to China grew much faster than imports from China last year.

While boosting investments in China, South Africa is also urgently looking for more Chinese investment, particularly in the infrastructure and raw material processing sectors.

"We would like to have more value added to our mining products before exporting them," Davies said.

Talks have been on with some Chinese companies including Sinopec and Sinosteel for cooperation toward that end.

For years, the glut of cheap imports flowing from the huge manufacturing zones of southern China on to shop shelves across the world has resembled an irreversible tide.

The result? An escalating trade deficit which has come to underline China's role as the West's factory floor.

Now, the largest internet company in China is attempting to help swing the pendulum back in the other direction.

Alibaba.com, the e-commerce firm headed by Jack Ma, the man dubbed China's "internet godfather", is to launch an online platform which will encourage the owners of British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to export their products to the world's most populous country.

Called Export to China, Export to the World, the new service, which will be launched in the second half of this year, will target the 268,000 Britons who are already members of Alibaba.com.

The website is currently recruiting new members in this country at a rate of 2,000 every week.

David Wei, chief executive of Alibaba.com and a former executive at B&Q in China, said that the new platform would appeal to British SMEs operating in industries in which Britain retained a prominent international role.

"In high-technology engineering products, where the UK is still very competitive, and in areas such as patents and intellectual property, there is a major opportunity for UK SMEs to export to China," said Wei.

Alibaba.com is the Hong Kong-listed unit of Alibaba Group, which also includes one of China's biggest consumer websites and a substantial online auction business.

Wei said the company continued to keep an open mind about stock market listings for other divisions of the group.

"We are keeping all options on the table," said Wei.

Last week, Alibaba.com reported its maiden results as a public company, unveiling a 200 per cent rise in operating profit to RMB804m.

The Chinese company may play a significant role in the ongoing takeover battle between Microsoft and Yahoo!, which owns a 39 per cent stake in Alibaba Group.

Ma is understood to have appointed Deutsche Bank to advise him on the situation and is in talks with potential investors who may be interested in co-funding a buyout of the Yahoo! stake.

On Friday, Ma was one of a number of senior Chinese businessmen who attended a discussion in London with government ministers about the future of the internet.