Recruiting in China

German hardware giant Wurth Group opened its first retail store in northeast China's Liaoning Province on Monday.

The store, located in the China-Germany Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Park in the province's capital Shenyang, displays thousands of products, such as fasteners, tools, chemical products and personal protection equipment.

"The favorable location and preferential policies of Liaoning, one of China's northeastern rust belt provinces, offered many development opportunities for investors," said Larry Stevens, CEO of Wurth China.

"We hope Wurth can introduce more advanced products and technology into this park, have further cooperation with local companies, as well as offer new ideas for the industrial development," said Li Baojun, deputy director of the management committee of the industrial park.

Founded in 2015, the China-Germany Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Park covers 48 square kilometers, attracts intelligent manufacturing, high-end equipment, automobile, industrial service and strategic emerging industries.

Wurth Group, founded in 1945, is a world market leader in the assembly and fastening material trade. It entered the Chinese market in 1994 and has 1,200 employees in more than 100 Chinese cities.

Logistics will play a critical role in fulfilling a seamless shopping experience in the era of the "New Retail", experts said.

As merchants begin to lean more on omnichannel sales, retailers need to tailor how a product is purchased and delivered to meet customer demands.

A survey of the world's leading retailers last November showed the top reasons for embarking on the omnichannel journey are to preserve a slice of the market share and improve customer loyalty.

The survey was conducted by US-based ARC Advisory Group in conjunction with logistics consultancy DC Velocity.

Most retailers are looking for the simplest means possible to integrate the new platforms within their existing infrastructure.

The study found out that three-quarters of retailers fulfilled orders from multiple channels through a single facility, laying a clear foundation of omnichannel practice.

In the survey, 86 percent said they took orders online (including mobile) while 77 percent also said brick-and-mortar, and 42 percent said they took orders from call centers and catalogs.

In terms of handling "last mile" deliveries, most merchants stick to the traditional courier delivery services at 43 percent, followed by third-party logistics partners at 23 percent. But others are experimenting creative options, including deliveries made by store staff and drones.

In China, e-commerce companies are experimenting with omnichannel solutions by offering warehouse-to-home and stores-to-home deliveries through partnerships and investments in offline supermarkets.

For instance, through its Cainiao logistics affiliate, an alliance of top Chinese shipping and courier companies, e-commerce giant Alibaba last year expanded its same-day and next-day deliveries from 50 cities to 200 cities.

According to a study by Goldman Sachs in March, Cainiao had 'Fulfilment Centers' dedicated to Alibaba's Tmall online marketplace operating in 19 cities at the end of last year.

It runs three fresh food distribution centers in three major Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. All of them support cold chain delivery of fresh food purchased on Taobao and Tmall to the doorsteps of Chinese consumers within 24 hours.

It recently upgraded the service by providing fresh, rather than frozen, imported Australian beef to the dining tables of residents in 12 cities in China. Cainiao said with its new technologies, meat can be preserved fresh between 0-4 degrees for up to 21 days.

Others are also making new moves on prompt deliveries. JD.com Inc has successfully used drones to deliver online purchases to rural shoppers, using unmanned aircraft for last-mile distribution.

Aerial photo taken on March 31, 2017 shows Baiyangdian, north China's largest freshwater wetland, in Anxin County, north China's Hebei Province.

International media reports and observers say the establishment of China's new economic zone not only provides a new blueprint for the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region, but also indicates China's determination to deepen its opening up in an all-round way.

China announced Saturday it would establish the Xiongan New Area in north China's Hebei Province, which is located some 100 km southwest of downtown Beijing.

Well-known international media outlets have enthusiastically reported about the new economic zone, regarding it a major decision of the Chinese government to promote the coordinated development of the BTH region, and a signal of China's willingness to continue to embrace globalization and free trade.

The Associated Press said the economic area is part of a plan to integrate the capital with its surrounding areas, noting that prior to this, the Chinese government had already planned to jointly develop Beijing, the port city of Tianjin and Hebei Province to boost regional and economic development in the northern region.

The Strait Times of Singapore said the removal of non-capital functions from Beijing is part of a greater strategy to integrate the development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei for a better economic structure, a cleaner environment and improved public services.

Bloomberg cited Bill Bowler, a sales trader at Forsyth Barr Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong, as saying that this would be one of the centerpieces of a high-level development plan for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Moreover, overseas analysts believe that the establishment of the new economic area will broaden economic growth and improve the level of China's opening-up.

Jose Ignacio Martinez, an international relations researcher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said Xiongan New Area's intended focus on developing high-end, high-tech industries has positive meaning for the country's overall industrial upgrading, and will stimulate a new round of China's economic growth.

Martinez also noted that Xiongan New Area's policy on opening up will further promote foreign direct investment and improve the level of China's opening up, citing the the successful examples of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and the Shanghai Pudong New Area.

Paola De Simone, an expert on international law and economic analyst from Argentina, said China's determination to build the area is an important component of the effort to promote economic globalization, and the setting up of Xiongan New Area will continue to boost the openness and inclusiveness of China's foreign communication and cooperation.

Simone added that Xiongan New Area, along with the seven new free trade zones, demonstrates China's open and friendly attitude toward the world.

She said China's step-by-step promotion of opening up is conducive to improving its production efficiency, driving its consumption, boosting foreign direct investment and enhancing innovative ability.

A worker at a plant in Xingtai, Hebei province, Jan 25, 2017.

Despite China's slower but more sustainable growth path, economic growth remains high by global standards as the country's population ages and the economy re-balances from investment to consumption and from manufacturing to services.

Still, as China's economic reforms continue, risks need to be addressed, as President Xi Jinping said recently, to cope with corporate over-leveraging, as well as to reduce overcapacity in the real estate and heavy industry sectors.

In the last few decades, the government has always been careful to pay attention to economic signals, including those against potential risks and problems, and carefully planned the structural reforms. The recently concluded annual sessions of the country's top legislature and top political advisory body also took note of the financial risks and adopted measures to tackle them.

Why is this important? Because the debt of non-financial enterprises in China has reached almost 170 percent of GDP by the end of last year, the highest level among leading economies, with State-owned enterprises accounting for more than 70 percent of the total corporate debt. In this context, the government's measures to tackle financial risks should include the gradual removal of implicit guarantees to SOEs and restricting leveraged investment in the assets markets.

China has already made progress on this front. Namely, the guidelines to deepen reforms of SOEs, issued in September 2015, describe six priority areas including aspects like mixed ownership and transitioning to a modern enterprise system. And 68 percent of the central government-controlled SOEs under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council had introduced non-State managers by the end of 2015, and more than 80 percent of all the SOEs under SASAC have set up or are in the process of setting up a board.

In addition to allowing companies with high debts (especially those in overcapacity industries) to exit the market, the government should also help them restructure, and ensure that the process takes place gradually in order to prevent the waste of valuable resources (which could be better used more efficiently or to make growth more inclusive).

Therefore, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests that insolvency procedures of the so-called zombie enterprises could be accelerated to reduce uncertainty and compensate laid-off workers.

Another aspect emphasized by the OECD regards the sharing of the benefits of growth, since China's tax and transfer system remains less efficient than those in other leading economies. For example, many low-income households pay a higher share of their incomes as social security premiums than the richer ones. And workers who are outside the formal labor market are not required to participate in the pension and medical insurance schemes, potentially increasing their financial vulnerability.

Hence, the OECD believes that the authorities should base the calculation of social security contributions of low-income households on their actual incomes, instead of the current system that prescribes a minimum contribution calculated on an imputed value of their earnings equivalent to 60 percent of the previous year's local average wage. The subsequent loss of revenue can be partly offset by the money that can be realized by reforming the individual income tax system, say, by abolishing the tax exemptions that favor high-income households. For instance, the interest received on government bonds or savings in banks, which now is non-taxable income, should be taxed.

All in all, it is important to highlight that the Chinese economy will remain the major driver of global growth, which is good news to the world economy. And once enterprises improve their performance through innovation and entrepreneurship, and the SOE reforms gain pace through exposure to market mechanisms, more jobs will be created and the benefits of economic growth can be shared by all.

China's central bank on Friday skipped the open market operations of reverse repos, draining liquidity from the market.

This was the sixth consecutive business day that the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has halted the open market operations of reverse repos, a process where it purchases securities from banks with an agreement to sell them back in the future.

This meant that there was no injection of short-term funds into the banking system, which led to a net cash withdrawal, as previous reverse repos matured Friday and siphoned 30 billion yuan (4.3 billion U.S. dollars) from the market.

The PBOC said in a statement that liquidity in the banking system was "at a relatively high level" as the government sped up fiscal spending near the end of the month.

Fiscal expenditures mean fiscal deposits flow into commercial banks from the central bank, thus, improving market liquidity.

China has pledged to pursue a prudent and neutral monetary policy in 2017, with the M2, a broad measure of the money supply, to grow by around 12 percent, one percentage point lower than the 2016 target.

China's civil aviation sector posted strong passenger growth despite a decline in cargo transportation in January this year, official data showed Monday.

Air passenger trips in January increased 17.6 percent year on year to 43.9 million, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

The pace was faster than the 11.8-percent growth registered for the whole year of 2016.

Passenger trips made on domestic routes rose 17.4 percent year on year to 38.96 million in January, while those made on international routes surged 19.1 percent to 4.97 million.

In January, air cargo and mail freight topped 565,000 tonnes in January, decreasing 3.8 percent year on year, affected by waning domestic cargo and mail business.

Domestic air cargo and mail freight declined 5.6 percent in January year on year to 409,000 tonnes, while international cargo and mail freight increased 0.9 percent in January to 156,000 tonnes.