100,000 Strong

Citing the strategic importance of the U.S.-China relationship President Obama announced in 2009 the 100,000 Strong Initiative, a national effort to increase dramatically the number of American students studying in China and prepare the next generation of American experts to manage the growing political, economic, and cultural ties between the United States and China. Kimberly McClure, Deputy Director of the 100,000 Strong Initiative and a Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State, will visit Northern Kentucky next week to speak to our higher education and business communities.

Kimberly McClure is an eight-year Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State. While traveling frequently to China in her current role, Kimberly has spent most of her career working on South Asia policy in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Washington.

Following two-year assignments to Mumbai, India, and Kabul, Afghanistan, Kimberly worked as Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan; completed an International Affairs Fellowship with the Council on Foreign Relations; and completed assignments in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Human Resources and Operations Center. Kimberly holds a B.A. in international relations from Stanford University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Thanks to an effort by the Greater Cincinnati World Affairs Council (GCWAC), on Wednesday, January 25 at 2:00 PM, Kimberly McClure will be at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce to meet with local business leaders who have an interest to speak about the economic development and growth benefits of China. To reserve a seat for this meeting, please contact Kyle Horseman at 859.426.3653 or by email.
Focus on China: 100,000 Strong
Kimberly McClure
Deputy Director,100,000 Strong Initiative
US Department of State
Time: 2:00-3:00 PM, Wednesday January 25th
Location: Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce
Cost: Free to attend
Contact: Kyle Horseman
859.426.3653

U.S. and China Conclude 22nd Session of the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade

Commerce, USTR and USDA welcome concrete results in trade negotiations, reiterate need to achieve greater market access for U.S. exporters

Chengdu, China – Today marked the conclusion of the 22nd session of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in Chengdu, China. United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk and U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson co-chaired the JCCT along with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also participated in the discussions.

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Office of the United States Trade Representative, Nov 21, 2011

Myths About China and India’s Africa Race

The two Asian giants are focusing on Africa as never before, write columnists Anil K. Gupta and Haiyan Wang, leading to many misconceptions about the role Chinese and Indian companies are playing there.

More countries in Africa are joining the global economy. Over the last decade, the continent’s GDP expanded at an average annual rate of 5.1 percent, low compared with emerging giants like China and India but still well above the global growth rate of 2.9 percent. During this period, Africa also became far more globally integrated and saw its merchandise trade grow at an annual rate of 12.9 percent, vs. a global growth rate of 8.9 percent.

Read more

by Anil K. Gupta and Haiyan Wang via Bloomberg Businessweek

U.S. urges China to open more markets

Senior U.S. trade officials on Tuesday urged China to open more markets for American goods and services and make progress on other priority trade issues at the annual Mid-Year Review Meeting for the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT).

The two governments also took stock of their trade and investment relationship, and identified key policy concerns in preparation for the 2011 JCCT plenary meeting that China will host later this year.

Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sanchez and Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Claire Reade co-chaired the meeting with Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Chao.

“We are focused on creating a balanced and healthy U.S.-China trade relationship, and we believe China should take steps to open more markets to American goods and services,” Sanchez said. “We face challenges that need to be addressed in our commercial relationship, but recognize the important synergies that exist between our National Export Initiative and China’s 12th Five Year Plan to develop and modernize its economy.” Read more.

American Shipper, 6/29/2011

China, UK trade set to boom, say experts

BEIJING – China and the United Kingdom will see bilateral trade and mutual investment boom in the coming years, experts and officials are predicting.

“Frequent high-profile visits between the two nations will continue to inject new vitality into bilateral trade and investment relations,” said Sun Yongfu, director of the department of European affairs at the Ministry of Commerce.

Premier Wen Jiabao started his latest European visit on Friday in Hungary and arrived in the UK on Saturday ahead of his planned stop in Germany.

Agreements to be signed between China and the UK during Wen’s visit will focus on regional trade and investment cooperation, service trade and avoidance of double taxation, while commercial agreements involve resource development, cooperation between banks and companies as well as architecture and design industries. The visit is a sign of the deep-rooted and wide-ranging economic ties between the two countries, Sun said.

The two nations signed 15 deals, worth $4.6 billion, when Vice-Premier Li Keqiang visited the UK in January and British Prime Minister David Cameron led a business delegation to China that yielded a host of deals last year.

China is the UK’s second-largest trading partner outside the European Union. Bilateral trade in goods and services reached a record $63 billion in 2010. Total trade volume in goods surged by 17.4 percent year-on-year to more than $20 billion in the first five months of 2011, according to the Ministry of Commerce.  Read more.

L. Lan, China Daily, 2011-06-28

Why Barbie Flopped in Shanghai

Mattel (MAT) opened its first free-standing Barbie store in China in March 2009—a giant, 36,000-square-foot edifice in a six story building on Shanghai’s Huaihai Road, one of the most expensive shopping streets in the country. It was the second such store on the planet, after the successful launch of a pioneering, 7,000-sq.-ft. outlet in Buenos Aires in 2008. Barbie’s Shanghai adventure didn’t work out so well, though. Mattel shut its doors on Mar. 7 this year.

It’s easy to dismiss this failure as a stark illustration of ignoring the well-worn dictum: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” In our view, such an explanation is far too simplistic. You can never outdo the Romans at the fine art of acting like a Roman. Creating the right blend of localization and globalization is a much harder task than achieving either complete localization or zero localization. To succeed in dynamic markets such as China and India, managers need to learn rapidly what and how to localize—while avoiding the risk of catastrophic failure from inevitable mistakes.

Consider the differences between Mattel’s experience in Argentina and China. The Argentine market was already Barbie-crazy; a Broadway-style Barbie musical had even been highly successful on the Buenos Aires stage. In contrast, Barbie was a relatively new concept to China. Mattel faced many more unknowns in China than it did in Argentina. Yet the company chose to start out with a store more than five times as large.  Read more.

A. Gupta, H. Wang, Bloomberg Business, April 21, 2011

2016: when China overtakes the US

Various observers have noted this week that China’s economy will be bigger than that of the United States in 2016. This comes from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) latest projections, which were made in its semi-annual April world economic outlook database. Since 2016 is just a few years away, and it will be the first time in more than a century that the United States will no longer be the world’s largest economy, this development will be the object of some discussion – from various perspectives.

First, let’s consider the economics. China has been the world’s fastest growing economy for more than three decades, growing 17-fold in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since 1980. It is worth emphasising that most of this record growth took place (1980-2000) while the rest of the developing world was doing quite badly by implementing neoliberal policy changes – indiscriminate opening to trade and capital flows, increasingly independent central banks, tighter (and often pro-cyclical) fiscal and monetary policies, and the abandonment of previously successful development strategies.

China clearly did not embrace these policy changes, which were promoted from Washington by institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and later the WTO. (China did not even join the WTO until 2002.) It is true that China’s growth acceleration included a rapid expansion of trade and foreign investment. But these were heavily managed by the state, to make sure that they fitted in with the government’s development goals – quite the opposite of what happened in most other developing countries. China’s goals included producing for export markets, promoting higher levels of technology (with the goal of transferring technology from foreign enterprises to the domestic economy), hiring local residents for managerial and technical jobs, and not allowing foreign investments to compete with certain domestic industries. Read more.

M. Weisbrot, Gaurdian,  Wednesday 27 April 2011

China Speeds Yuan Push

HONG KONG—China is accelerating efforts to push its currency deeper into world markets, racing ahead with a series of moves toward a new financial ecosystem with the yuan at its center.

A senior Hong Kong monetary official told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that China’s central bank is “actively considering” new rules that would make it easier to bring yuan funds raised offshore back onto the Chinese mainland.  Read more.

P. Stein, Wallstreet Journal, April 20,2011

Preparing for 2011 China Validation

Custom and Border Protection (CBP) has recently notified C-TPAT members, who have all or a majority of their foreign business partners (FBP) in China, that they have been selected to be part of the joint validation process with CBP and the Chinese Government. CBP states that this validation will be conducted during the 2011 calendar year.

Only specific regions in China will be subjected to such foreign validation visits. The target locations for the validations in 2011 will be the Guangdong Province, tentatively targeted to be completed during July/August, 2011, and Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces which are tentatively targeted to be completed during September/October, 2011.

CBP will retrieve information against the member’s IOR (Importer of Record) number(s). This will be accomplished by identifying the MID (Manufacturer Identification Code) number(s) for one or more of the member’s foreign vendors which has been designated in and/or located in or nearby the target province(s). A MID code is derived from the name and address of the entity (i.e., factory) performing the origin process.  Read more.

Norman Jaspan Associates, 04/25/2011

Pacific Trade International’s Mei Xu: Marketing to China

What kind of opportunities are there for American small businesses in China?
If you go to Shanghai, there are all these European small business people from places like Holland, England, and France. They’re from small countries, so they are born with a trader’s mentality. They know there is not much to lose and so much to gain in China. Americans often think only about market share in their own country.

How is China different from the U.S. for an entrepreneur like you?
It’s very fragmented. There are no national chains like Target (TGT) or Wal-Mart (WMT). But there are 10 cities with more than 10 million people, and in Shanghai there are more than 20 million. If you open 10 stores in Shanghai, you can have a brisk business. You just have to pick the right battles.       Read More.

D. Leonard, Bloomberg Businessweek, March 24, 2011