Recruiting in China

Foreign investment in China started with a trickle in the early 1980s and has increased to the extent that China is now siphoning off a significant percentage of the world’s available foreign investment funding. With China’s accession to the WTO and the continuing vitality of its economy, this trend seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, China remains an unfamiliar and challenging place to do business for many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). A popular way for an SME to get its feet wet in the China market without risking a lot of capital is through the establishment of a Representative Office (RO). The author touched on this topic briefly in the article “Investing in China: Establishing a Business Presence”. This article aims to delve into this topic in more detail.

Before going into the “how” of establishing an RO in China, perhaps it would be best to ask “why?”. Most companies that establish ROs in China do so because they are much easier to establish than direct investment vehicles such as joint ventures and wholly foreign owned enterprises, and generally require only about a tenth of the capital outlay. ROs are also permitted to operate in the shrinking list of industry sectors that are forbidden to direct investment vehicles.

The downside is that there are some very limiting restrictions on the type of activities that an RO may engage in. For example, an RO may not:

1. Conduct direct business activities: An RO’s activities must be confined to product promotion, market research, liaison, and the like, and it may neither charge fees for its services nor engage in profitable activities such as direct sales or manufacturing (although they are subject to taxation under certain circumstances).

2. Directly invoice clients or sign contracts: These activities must be handled by the parent company.

3. Directly hire employees: It must utilize an authorized human resources agency that will refer suitable candidates to the RO in exchange for a certain percentage of employee salaries. Some ROs make an end run around this system by directly recruiting and negotiating with employment candidates and sending their names to the authorized human resources agency so that it can then ‘refer’ these candidates back to the RO. While this practice doesn’t seem to have caused many problems with the Chinese authorities so far, the formalities of referral and salary deduction must be complied with.

In light of these restrictions, why bother establishing an RO at all?

1. A company might want to conduct market research in order to decide whether or not to make a future investment in China.

2. A company might wish to establish an RO in a business sector in which foreign investment is currently forbidden in anticipation of future liberalization of Chinese foreign investment law in line with its WTO commitments. In the meantime it can establish a presence, make local connections, and learn about the market.

3. A company might already be doing a modest amount of business with China from its home country but lack the market penetration or resources to justify a direct investment. Once the company attains greater market share it can always upgrade to a joint venture or wholly foreign owned enterprise.

4. Sectors of certain industries such as insurance and finance require foreign investors to operate an RO for at least two years before making a direct investment.

5. A company might want to use an RO to hire local employees to help them find Chinese suppliers.

6. A company might establish an RO with the aim of exceeding its legal restrictions, and thereby establish the functional equivalent of a joint venture or wholly foreign owned enterprise while avoiding much of the expense and inconvenience. This approach is not recommended, since it is likely to lead to trouble with the authorities.

By: David Carnes

BEIJING - "When I hit the big time, I will buy a BMW-7 series car as my marriage dowry," said sparkling 22-year-old Jian Jingtao. "I'll give it to my fiance to show him how much I love him."

In China, the cheapest BMW-7 series model costs nearly 1 million yuan (US$133,000) while the average annual income for urban residents nationwide was only 12,000 yuan in 2006.

Jian, a civil servant in the southwestern province of Sichuan, makes about 1,200 yuan a month, and she also works as a part-time weather girl at a TV station in Liangshan Yi Autonomous

Prefecture, an impoverished region in Sichuan, where most people haven't even heard of BMW. The part-time job doesn't bring her much money.

Then, how can she possibly realize her dream? Well, instead of counting on her part-time job, she has other ideas.

"I'm taking the Chartered Financial Analyst [CFA] test and I've passed level II," says Jian, her eyes shining with hope. "Just one step away from the best financial institutions."

She believes getting a job in such institutions will mean she is one step closer to her dream car.

Official data suggest that staff workers in China's well-known financial institutions make 15,000 yuan a month and more. And jobs in the financial sector have being taking the lead, driven by the basic principle of a market economy's supply and demand.

About 45 million people will join the labor force in the next five years in China, but many of them will have to take jobs as laborers and construction workers and make just 800 yuan a month.

When lecturing in China's leading Tsinghua University, China Construction Bank (CCB) chairman Guo Shuqing testified that the most troubling problem facing his bank in its "go overseas" strategy is a shortage of talented professionals.

CCB, one of China's "Big Four" state-owned commercial banks, wants to set up branches in New York and London, Guo told the students, adding that the bank is "hungry for people specialized in financial accounting, securities analysis, portfolio management, interest rate pricing and foreign exchange pricing".

China, the world's fastest-growing economy with an annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of almost 10% for the past 10 years, has long been considered the world's factory, producing about 75% of the world's home appliances, for example.

But as the country moves to a more market-oriented financial system, financial talent is at a premium because there are many issues to deal with.

As a major reform in the financial sector, China dropped its currency peg to the US dollar in July 2005 and linked the yuan to a basket of foreign currencies, allowing it to float in a 0.5% band (which was expanded to 0.5% this year) around the official central parity.

"Everything changed when they expanded the fluctuation range to 0.5%," says textile trader Wei Changshan from Beijing-based Dongxing Textile Co. "I'd really like to hire someone to tell me about how to manage it."

In July 2005, one US dollar could be exchanged for 8.28 yuan. On September 21 this year, the same dollar could be bought for just 7.51 yuan.

Hearkening to overseas comments, Yi Gang, assistant governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC), the country's central bank, said that the exchange rate of the Chinese currency would gradually become more flexible.

As for the stock market, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index surged by more than 130% year-on-year in 2006 after a five-year bearish market, thanks to reformed securities regulations and continuing strong economic growth. China's stock market is now the largest in Asia by market capitalization.

As new regulations come into play concerning foreign investments, Chinese fund managers and securities traders would like to compete with overseas competitors. The lack of financial talents seems serious.

A recent government document on qualified domestic institutional investors (QDII) allows domestic fund management and securities companies to follow commercial banks into the arena of overseas securities.

"We started preparing for QDII products nearly six months ago," said Xu Xiaosong, vice general manager of China Southern Fund Management. "So we are recruiting. Unfortunately we are not the only ones. A number of big securities companies are looking for people," said a fund manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's simple. If we want to win the competition we need the best team."

Not surprisingly, foreign banks are also on the lookout for qualified people in China. In 2005, the Bank of East Asia opened personal services, the first to do so in China.

In the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue held in May, China agreed to allow foreign banks to issue their own yuan-dominated credit and debit cards. The move is seen as a way of boosting fair competition between local and foreign financial institutions.

At the third national conference on financial work early this year, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that China would facilitate fair competition between domestic and foreign financial institutions.

As the government opens the banking sector to meet its World Trade Organization commitments, the human resources battle for the best and brightest in the financial sector has escalated as well.

HSBC expects to grow its headcount from 3,000 to 4,000 in China this year and Citigroup plans to hire about 1,000 extra people. Standard Chartered said it did not have a specific target this year but hired 1,000 in 2006.

Finding enough experienced staff and training them adequately is the toughest issue confronting the bank, HSBC China chief executive Richard Yorke said earlier this year.

"There is no real finance education in Chinese colleges," noticed Wang Zhao, an economist with Beijing University's China Center for Economic Research. "The so-called finance [education] in colleges only consisted of macro-control measures, such as monetary policy, that hark back to the days of the planned economy. What Chinese students want now is courses on securities analysis and portfolio management," he said.

A recent international survey released by Deloitte Consulting found that two-thirds of the 636 senior finance executives surveyed thought the supply of high-quality talent in Asia was limited or inadequate.

"The crucial but tricky part is that you have to master international practice as well as the local reality," managing director for Asia-Pacific Operations CFA Institute Jane Squires commented.

"This year, 10,200 people signed up to take the CFA test in China, up 30% from last year," Squires said. "We can reasonably project that there will be 600 more CFA holders at the end of 2007."

"I can't say how many financial experts China needs but one thing is certain, there is plenty of room for those who have the capacities. The United States currently has 44,220 people who hold the CFA qualifications. In comparison there are 3,650 in Hong Kong, 2,133 in Singapore and just 1,086 in China," she said.

China has outlined its new policies for the financial sector, including deepening the reform of state-owned banks, facilitating rural financial reforms, and steadily pushing forward the reform of foreign exchange rate.

The country's financial sector is set to speed up as the market continues to swing open. In that case, Jian Jingtao, the young lady with so many traditional Chinese virtues, has an excellent chance of realizing her dream and the dream of her lucky boyfriend, probably with a little help in the shape of a bank loan.

Duncan Mavin, Financial Post
Published: Thursday, October 04, 2007

In China's red-hot recruitment market, business professionals are desperate to get ahead of the competition, with qualifications and overseas experience among the most sought after resume credentials.

'Returnees,' Chinese workers who have spent several years honing their business skills abroad, often have their pick of the best jobs, as does any Chinese executive with foreign training.

It's a trend that is leading to a wealth of opportunities for Canadian organizations able to provide the right kind of training.

At Toronto City Hall in August, for instance, twenty-eight Chinese executives became the latest graduates of the Canadian Securities Institute.

The business students from Guangfa Securities, a full-service securities firm based in Gaungzhou, China, graduated from a two-month course organized by CSI in conjunction with the Securities Association of China.

Hundreds of financial professionals from China have participated in CSI's executive style training programs in the past couple of years.

But it isn't the only organization to spot the opportunity.

Ads for the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business are impossible to miss in Hong Kong, where they are plastered all over subways and other prominent places.

The Ivey school has a modern campus in Hong Kong -- with a high-profile location in the heart of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre -- and another office in Beijing, as well as alumni associations in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Schools from all over the world are catching on fast, says Pete Fiaschi, the head of international marketing at Newcastle College, a vocational school in the northeast of England that focuses on the business of arts, tourism and sports.

Toronto-born Mr. Fiaschi spends most of the summer months travelling through China, including to relatively unknown cities such as Fuzhou or Qingdao, recruiting 200 or so Chinese students whose fees are a significant source of income for the school. In July, he set up permanent regional offices in Beijing and in Dalian, in northern China, to deal with the growing competition for Chinese students.

CSI, too, has a permanent office in Beijing and is about to open a Shanghai office. It also has partnerships with Chinese universities, including the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, and the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

There is competition among foreign training providers, says Ms. Wilton. In particular, many of the big foreign banks and securities firms offer training courses, as do the international consulting and accounting firms.

CSI is betting its North American perspective plus its access to trainers from a variety of real live businesses gives it an edge over some more academic institutions as well as companies that can only provide insight from one industry.

Offering courses jointly with the Chinese regulator also helps build credibility, which will lead to deeper inroads in China, says Ms. Wilton.

After 13 years of building its business recruiting permanent workers in China, Manpower Inc. announced Wednesday that it is the first multinational corporation to receive a license to provide temporary-staffing services in the nation.

Milwaukee-based Manpower said that it, along with six Chinese firms, has been granted a license to supply temporary help to employers as part of a pilot program organized by the Shanghai Personnel Bureau.

P&G China has offered a new policy to many employees, allowing them to choose one day to work from home from the five work days per week.

P&G currently has more than 6000 employees in China. The company says employees can choose one day to work from home each week based on their own work conditions. Zhai Yuyan, deputy director of P&G's Human Resource Department, has told local media that this new policy of allowing employees to work at home is another strategy that the company has taken to help employees balance their arrangements between work and life. According to local media reports, P&G's employees seem to be pleased with this new policy which offers them more freedom.

Apart from this work policy, P&G also allows its employees to work for npart-time. The company says its employees can apply for working three days or four days each week according to their needs, for which they will get only 60%-80% of their full salary, but they will enjoy the full amount of other benefits like social insurance and accident insurance.

In addition, P&G reportedly allows its pregnant employees to take maternity leave two months in advance of giving birth to a baby and says they can apply for a one-year maternity leave if necessary.

CHINA Investment Corp Ltd, the state investment company set up to gain better returns on China's huge foreign exchange reserves, will invest in all markets worldwide except those that make settlement in the yuan, Chairman Lou Jiwei said yesterday.

Lou, a delegate to the ongoing 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, said the company will operate in "a completely commercial way."

"Some media reports have said China has political considerations behind the company, but I think that is an unnecessary worry," he said.

The company, inaugurated late last month, has a board of directors and a supervisory committee that ensures its commercial operation, Lou said.

It is now working on corporate regulations and building its team.

The company will communicate with international financial institutions, multinational organizations and supervisory institutions in foreign countries, he said.

The company's US$200 billion in registered capital comes from China's foreign-exchange reserves. It is being assembled through the issuance of 1.55 trillion yuan (US$206 billion) in special treasury bonds by the Ministry of Finance.

China's foreign exchange reserves reached US$1.43 trillion at the end of last month, up 45.1 percent from the same period last year, according to the People's Bank of China.

In May, the new company, still in its preparation phase, made its first investment in US$3 million worth of nonvoting shares in Blackstone Group, a private equity firm based in the United States.

Also yesterday, Minister of Finance Xie Xuren said China will continue its "prudent" fiscal policy for the foreseeable future and keep the size of deficits and treasury bonds at "sound" levels.

Xie, who is also a delegate to the Party Congress, said the government will coordinate fiscal and monetary policies in a drive to strengthen and improve macroeconomic management.
Using a "scientific outlook on development," Xie said the Ministry of Finance will implement policy incentives to encourage innovative companies and increase state investment in research and development in key national labs.

The financial and taxation branches of the government must build institutions that support a resources-efficient and environmentally friendly economy, Xie said.