China reopening: companies try to lure back expat staff with bigger pay, allowances after pandemic exodus
South China Morning Post, February 04 2023
With its strict pandemic curbs now in the rear-view mirror, hopes are high that key foreign staff will return to mainland China
Some believe the lavish expat remuneration package is a thing of the past as firms based in China increasingly look to local talent to fill vacancies
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Ruthger de Vries, a senior executive at Scania Group, a Swedish heavy vehicle manufacturer, is a busy man. He is helping about 100 expatriates from as far afield as Brazil and Sweden to relocate to China, where they will train a new team of locals in Rugao, a city in the eastern province of Jiangsu.
The incoming staff at the Sodertalje-based company, including managers, engineers and designers, are tasked with training the local workforce to make lorries and buses of the same quality as Scania’s factories elsewhere. Most will settle in Rugao where a new plant is being built, while a few will head for cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Nantong, home to some of the company’s existing staff.
[Continue reading full article at SCMP]
China’s carbon market grows slowly amid data concerns
Fair Planet, May 18 2022
China vows to clamp down on data fabrication in 2022 as its national emissions trading scheme (ETS) is nearing the one-year mark.
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As of 29 April, China has seen around 190 million tonnes of carbon emissions allowances (CEA) traded to reach 8.3 billion yuan since the launch of its national carbon market on 16 July, 2021, according to data from Shanghai Environment and Energy Exchange. By summer 2022, the CEA that have changed hands should well exceed 200 million tons.
The move to trade carbon emissions nationwide came as China pledges to hit peak emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 – aims dubbed the “dual carbon” goals.
[Continue reading full article at Fair Planet]
Could China’s coronavirus outbreak hurt the global drug industry?
Al Jazeera, 26 February 2020
China, epicentre of the outbreak, is the world’s dominant maker of the building blocks of some of the most common drugs.
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“When you control the supply of medicines, you control the world.”
Those were the words of Rosemary Gibson, co-author of the book, China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine, at a United States Congressional committee hearing last July in Washington, DC.
At that session of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Gibson, who is also a senior adviser to the Hastings Center, a US-based bioethics research institute, laid out her concerns about what she described as “a really hidden and overlooked threat to our national health security, economic prosperity, and national security, and that is our dependence on China for medicine.”
[Continue reading full article at Al Jazeera]
No more easy money from mass testing despite COVID zero
The China Project, October 19 2022
COVID testing companies in China pocketed billions of yuan in the first half of 2022, but the big bucks that have lured many newcomers to enter the market may end soon, as Beijing has imposed price caps for testing.
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China is spending a fortune on COVID testing. Analysts at Soochow Securities 东吴证券 estimated that local governments spent 174.6 billion yuan ($24.3 billion) on conducting 10.8 billion tests from April to June this year. In another research note (which has since been censored in mainland China), they estimated that China is spending as much as 1.45 trillion yuan ($202 billion) on testing a year, assuming that 505 million people in big cities take a COVID test every 48 hours.
“We previously estimated that regular/mass COVID-19 screening can cost between 94 billion yuan ($13 billion) and 398 billion yuan ($55 billion) in 2022 alone, with most of the costs borne by local governments. The expenditure — and by extension the industry it creates — is significant, but not egregious,” Chim Lee, an analyst at Economist Intelligence Unit, told The China Project.
[Continue reading full article at The China Project]
Chinese drugmakers set sights on emerging markets
PharmaDJ, July 11 2022
The journey for Chinese biosimilars on the Belt and Road begins as drugmakers seek new markets.
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Deal by deal, biotech treatments made in China are reaching countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and even Africa – markets that are often overlooked.
Since 2021, nine out-licensing deals have been made to take Chinese biosimilars overseas, especially emerging markets.
[Continue reading full article at PharmaDJ]
As the Covid-19 crisis highlights the fragility of the global economy, green finance gets a boost
ACCA Global, 01 July 2020
As attention turns to recovery in a post-Covid-19 world, is now the time to focus on creating a more sustainable and resilient global economy through green finance?
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The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to economies and financial systems. With recovery urgently needed, some financial professionals believe the time is right to bet on green finance to rebuild the economy on a more equitable foundation.
Investors have retained their confidence in green finance throughout the turmoil that has roiled markets over the past few months. Inflows into environment, social and governance (ESG) funds steadied at around US$4bn per month from January to March this year, while inflows into top US equity exchange-traded funds showed notable volatility, according to data from Morgan Stanley and Bloomberg. The data point to a shared vision for a low-carbon, better balanced and fairer future for all even as the Covid-19 outbreak has left millions jobless, stalled many businesses and crippled supply chains putting the global financial system in peril.
‘The Covid-19 pandemic – and how we respond to it – is a serious threat not only to global health but our investments and financial system stability,’ says Matthew McAdam, director of Asia Pacific at Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). ‘The crisis has raised genuine questions about whether our global financial system is fit-for-purpose.’
[Continue reading full article at ACCA Global]