Vol.2 January 15, 2003
Recent Business Highlights
Investment Service (IS)
CPDF's IS Group has concluded recently its current mandate service to Aiminer, a local shoe maker. During the past year, CPDF has provided help to the company in the areas of financial, opeartional, environmental and human resources management, achieving great improvement of the latter's operation and cash flows. As a result, Aiminer successfully obtained finance from China Agricultural Bank Sichuan Branch for further expansion. Ms. Liu Qiongying, owner and general manager of the company, has strongly acknowledged the value of CPDF services to her business and herself, and expressed her willingness to continue the cooperaton with the Facility.
CPDF signed its sixth IS mandate on January 15, 2003, with Sichuan Baoxing Ruite Stone Material Co., Ltd., a local SME specialized in marble products in two remote locations outside Chengdu. The company has engaged CPDF as financial advisor to provide advice on its business development strategy, financial management, and corporate governance structure. A business plan and funding proposal will be prepared to asist Ruite to raise finance.
Business Enabling Environment (BEE)
The IFC-sponsored survey on State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) restructuring and privatization in Chengdu kicked off on January 6, 2003. BeijingUniversityChinaCenter for Economic Research, designated organizor of the survey, went to this western China city to interview 20 medium-sized companies between January 6 and 10 in a bid to collect information on the process, scope and issues related to the city's efforts to restructure its debt-burdened SOEs since 1995. More than 100 questionnaires are also expected to be collect and analyzed in a later stage. The survey is one of the series, initiated by International Finance Corporation in collaboration with China State Economy and Trade Commission, taking place in eleven major Chinese industrial cities across the country, including Harbin, Lanzhou, Xining, Zhenjiang and Tangshan. It will enable CPDF and the local governments to make comparison of SOEs in Chengdu with those in other cities.
CapacityBuilding (CB)
CPDF has embarked on the market assessment as well as localization of "Teaching Yourself Business Management" workbook series, a successful model developed by Mekong Project Development Facility (MPDF). The training program will start with the marketing module, followed by HR and others. CPDF are in discussion with a couple of local consultants to develop contents of the trainer's guide for the module while finalizing the contract with regard to the "train-the-trainer" (TTT) courses. In early January, CPDF held a meeting with selected local training firms and introduced to them the whole program layout. Most attendants, over 15 of them in total, have showed great interest and confirmed their participation in the TTT courses.
A symposium was held on January 8, 2003, by EDAC, which belongs to the Sino-British COoperative SOERED (State-Owned Enterprise Restructuring and Enterprise Development) Project financed by DFID, to present to about 90 attendants, most of them local SMEs, the Business Performance Improvement Program (BPIP) introduced to Sichuan by CPDF. Eric Siew, General Manager of CPDF, made an important speech on IFC and CPDF in Sichuan and the presentation was well received. Heads of Sichuan Provincial MOFTEC, SME Department of Chengdu Municipal Government and Sichuan Federation of Industry and Commerce also addressed the conference, after which many SMEs participating in the symposium showed great interest in the program and expressed their willingness to work with EDAC.
EDAC is one of the five local consulting firms selected by CPDF to implement the BPIP in the region. BPIP aims at building the local capacity to offer creative and affordable management consulting services to local SMEs.
Visitors To CPDF
- Mr. Yang Yao, associate professor at BeijingUniversity's ChinaCenter for Economic Research, a renowned institute both at home and abroad, came to Chengdu with his students to work with CPDF on the State-Owned Enterprise Restructuring survey from January 5 to January 10, 2003.
- Mr. Brenton Siviour, consultant from Australia's Mckessar Tieleman, visited CPDF again starting Februry 15, 2003, to deliver a five-day coaching session to the five selected local management consulting firms. Brenton is here to help local consultants to understand more of consulting tools, conduct customer Advisory session with them, and help the firms to market BPIP.
People Among Us - Ms. Rong Chen, who joined CPDF in July 2002 as Business Development Officer for the Environmental Management Project, has a strong technical background and impressive academic achievement. Before she came here, Rong worked with London-based Vector Management Ltd., taking a major role to support its business development initiatives in China and, in particular, the JinanAirport preliminary design project. She was also involved with several of Vector's projects in the UK, including those of London Heathrow Terminal Five, ManchesterAirport and LondonStanstedAirport. Rong obtained her second MSc of Engineering Project Management from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 2000, six years after her first one at ChongqingArchitectureUniversity majoring in Environmental Engineering.
- News From The Region
According to statistics released by the local government recently, there were an average 40 private enterprises setting up everyday during 2002. Most of the companies are involved in wholesales and retailing, restaurants, manufacturing, and intermediary business service, while e-commerce, software development and logistics have also become hot spots attracting new investment.
The Chengdu Municipal Government will allocate RMB80 million (US$9.7 million) as a special fund to support the financing to local SMEs. Of the amount, RMB60 million (US$7.3 million) would be used to increase the capital of local credit guarantee firms, RMB10 million (US$1.2 million) as subsidies for interest payment and bad debt preparation, and the rest to build up a credit checking database and support local business service providers.
In another development, a symposium on Medium & Small Enterprises Promotion Law and SME Development was held in Chengdu on December 20, 2002, which was sponsored by the China Enterprises Federation and the China Enterprises Culture Promotion Association. Representatives from more than 150 SMEs and over 20 financial institutions attended the meeting. The SME law, first of its kind in China, came into effect on January 1, 2003.
Preliminary data released by Sichuan Provincial Statistics Bureau shows that the province's GDP in 2002 would reach RMB487.5 billion (US$59 billion), taking the lead among its counterparts in West China and ranked 10th in the entire nation. However, most of the cities and counties in the region still lag far behind the national average in terms of GDP per capita.
Recent statistics by Sichuan Customs Bureau show that the Province witnessed an extraordinary surge in its foreign trade between January and November 2002, during which the trade volume jumped by 50.3% year-on-year to US$4.1 billion. Export alone hit US$2.5 billion, an increase of 78.6% from the same period in 2001. The statistics also indicate the development speed of Sichuan foreign trade was 2.6 times higher than the national average for the period and ranked the first in central and western China.
Coming Up Soon - China's Lunar New Year, also called the Spring Festival, the most important holiday for the ordinary Chinese, is coming starting February 1, 2003. There are twelve animal symbols representing the Chinese lunar year cycle, and in 2003 it is the year of sheep. Family gathering is the major activity during the festival, and children are especially happy since they can receive a lot of pocket money from the elders to spend and save.
- Ms. Irina Niederberger will be joining CPDF team and assuming responsibility for overseeing its Corporate Governance, EnvironmentalCapacityBuilding and Management Training programs. She will also work on establishing project management and monitoring procedures and systems at CPDF, while continuing her role as a PDF M&E Coordinator.
- A five-day training session will be given by Mckessar Tieleman in Chengdu Yinhe Dynasty Hotel between January 21 and January 25, 2003, for CPDF's local partners involved in the BPIP implementation.