Surprising Harbin - Russian Village
Did you know that . . . a new tourist-oriented Russian
village, staffed with ethnic Russians has opened in the
Sun Island resort of Harbin. The village provides a
Russian cultural experience to residence and tourist to
the Harbin. Singer, painters and dancers from
Vladivostok and Khabarovsk will serve as entertainers
and service staff of the village. The village provides
large-scale employment for many Russians who have
immigrated to this part of China and continues the
cultural bridge between the two nations.
The village is operated by Jianglong Group, a local
company.
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Dear Friends:
We are off to a running start. This week marks the
opening of the fabulous Harbin Snow and Ice Festival.
You can check our website for some pictures of past
events. It is also the start of the Harbin International
Ice and Snow Festival Economic and Trade Fair. While
it is a bit late to take advantage of these events, we
will be taking business leaders and investors to Harbin
in March. Watch this space for details. Our trips offer
great advantages over many business missions. We do
not cram too many cities into each trip. Visiting a city
a day may be interesting from a tourist standpoint, but
it is impossible to provide delegates with meaningful
business connections and discussions. Also, we limit
the number of delegates for the same reason. Trip that
bring 50 to 300 people per mission are little more than
tourist programs. We try to make sure each of our
delegates have clear business objectives, and that
they engage in serious and substantive meetings with
top government officials, potential business partners,
and legitimate sources of goods. Also, visiting so many
cities in one trip means excruciating travel - packing an
unpacking, registering and checking out every day.
Most of the valuable time in China is in non-productive
and wearying travel. We believe that "business" should
be the primary purpose of a business trip. It is an
investment that should realize a real return.
Through our company, TJI International, we are
pursuing a number of specific investment opportunities
in Harbin. The most significant at the moment is a
partnership for a Hollywood-style food court in the
heart of the tourist and commercial area. This will be a
joint venture with Brown's Chicken and Pasta, and be
located next to the brand new Warner Bros. 16-screen
movie house - in a new mall anchored by Wal-Mart. It
is envisioned that this will be the first of similar
arrangements throughout out China in the next few
years. If you would like to learn more about this
investment opportunity, give us a call. Larry Horist -
President HBE
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| Tool Company Joint Venture Deal | | | Harbin No 1 Tool Corporation (at the Harbin
Development Zone) established a joint-venture (JV)
with Plasma und Vakuum Technik GmbH (PVT), a well-
known vacuum coating company based in Germany.
The first batch of 13 million yuan (US$1.5 million) worth
of equipment imported from Germany has arrived and
the company is expected to start operation in January.
The JV is a successful joint-stock program in Harbin's
move to revitalize its old industrial base. PVT will now have easy access to the Chinese tool
market with the help of the vast sales network of
Harbin No 1 Tool Corporation covering 30 provinces,
cities, and autonomous regions, and more than 30
countries and regions in Europe, the Americas, and
Southeast Asia. The JV will mainly provide coating
service for tool companies in Northeast China upon
completion and can achieve an estimated annual
output of US$2 million. | | |
| China Curbs Copyright Piracy | | | China announced more stringent legal measure to
combat rampant copyright piracy, which is one of the
major concerns of its major trade partners. The
measures include expanding the scope of violations
punishable by prison sentences and prison terms up to
seven years for the most serious offenders. According
to China's highest court, it is their hope that this will
make it economically impossible for the criminals
convicted and sentenced to recommit the crime. A spokesman said the U.S. embassy had taken note of
the news and would examine the text carefully with
government departments that follow IPR issues,
Reuters reported. U.S. officials and businesses have
complained that it has been too difficult to prosecute
copyright violators, and successful cases have almost
always resulted in modest fines that provide little
deterrence. | | |
| Locals Rival Foreigners | | | The investments of private entrepreneurs in China are
transforming the economy in a way that rivals the
influence of the headline-grabbing foreign investors.
This is particularly visible in the industrial rustbelt of
China's northeast, which in 2003, was identified by
Beijing as the target of its latest developmental
campaign to "revitalize the northeast". Now, as foreign companies bid for stakes in the many
state-owned companies being put up for sale by
provincial and city governments across China, they are
more likely than ever to discover that their competition
is a Chinese entrepreneur with less than 10 years of
corporate experience. Being small, the Chinese
investors are more flexible and do not face the cultural
and legal issues. Though it is difficult to make a
precise comparison between domestic and foreign
investments, officials say that domestic investment
from other provinces is now running about equal with
inflows of foreign investments. | | |
| Healthy Farmers | | | A new rural co-operative medical system launched in
Hulan of Harbin, will provide the necessary financial aid
to help farmers with high medical costs related to
serious illnesses. Experiences from the pilot project will
benefit the expected establishment of a health
insurance system covering 18 million farmers
throughout the province. If successful, the system will
be fully implemented by 2010. For decades, low-income farmers in China have
benefited little from the country's healthcare budget.
For many of them getting sick equates to becoming
broke. Now, they have the option to join the system,
with each farmer paying USD 1.20 annually and the city
and province making the rest of the contribution. Being
the largest grain production bases in China, Heilongjiang
Province, which has a very large rural population, will
reap tremendous benefit from this new program. | | |
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