Financial Scams

Financial Scams

There was a high number of scams in 2015 - 2018, lets hope 2019 is better. As the watchdogs started to fight to conform with the number of fluctuations that has conformed to the financial business, this was revealed during a meeting to deal with the problem. The number of cases that the government has declared as illegal fundraising went up by over 70% in the past year, it was Yang Yuzhu who leads the inter-agency body assigned to deal with the issue, during a meeting on the 27th of April that has attended by around fourteen ministries as well as commissions.

Those who have attended the meeting that has been open to the media personnel never said anything pertaining to the number of fraud cases concerning the authorities in the past year. The government is actually unclear about what is enclosed in the illegal fundraising, however, there were more reported scams as well as Ponzi schemes. This, however, see the money from new investors who used to pay for the previous ones, they have shown in the news in the past years as well. The amount of the money that was involved in the scam in the past two years went up by over ½ in 2015 as well as the number of cases that involves more than a hundred million Yuan rose by 44% year after year, according to Yang.

With the rising coverage of the issues, the courts on the other hand do not have much judges with the financial information according to Yongyi, who also happened to be a judge of the Supreme People's Court. There were new kinds of scams that have been modelled for regulators encouraging Zhang Xiaojin who is an officer at the Supreme People's Procuratorate. According to the office of the top prosecutors, unlawful fundraising is normally done under the roof of the monetary modernization. The prosecutors must go through more training, this way, they can determine the difference between the scams as well as the financial technology, this is in accordance with the statement of Zhang.

The internet has made it harder for the regulators to restrict the coverage of the fraud, this is according to Yang. During the latter part of this year, the government has closed the Ezubo, which is a kind of P2P lending site that the investigators said has cheated more than 900,000 small investors from the more than fifty billion Yuan using the Ponzi scheme. According to the officials during a meeting once said that they will just use the newest technologies. This is to keep up with the stronger methodology of monitoring in terms of the financial sector, thus to persuade the government bodies to share some of the information that they have. They also said and promised to start the campaign in May. This aims to give some information about the risks and the effects of the scammers to the government.

The central government gives more time on the scam after untying the string of the financial corruptions. The Beijing government and so do with Shanghai as well as Shenzhen has paused the opening of the companies with the names suggests that they give some financial services, the people linked in this matter tells all about it, but it will just be for a period of time until the problems are settled. The documents sent to different firms last April said that the rules will be stricter for the internet finance products. The contents that assures high returns, endorsement of various celebrities as well as wrongful information will be banned in the net finance companies' advertisements.

Survive the Chinese Business Scene

Survive the Chinese Business Scene

We bring you Eight Golden Rules to Survive the Chinese Business Scene. The best way to learn about China is to be physically present and experience first-hand outside of luxury cars. Store visits and learning on the ground by checking up on the private residences are the best activities to learn about China. Travelling to third tier cities can give you a better overview picture of China.

Secondly, one must be sensitive to industrial changes. Common factor for business losses is that overseas firms are too obsessed with market share growth and abandon other competitive traits. For example, there were 20 or more foreign brewers in mid 90s for the beer sector. Each planned to capture 15% of the market. However, lack of differentiation made them compete head to head with 600 plus local brewers, heavily reliant on government subsidies. Twenty years on, same issue is still present. Other industries have similar traits to the beer sector, all facing overcapacity, highly fragmented, heavily subsidized by local government and foreigner willingly absorbing strategic investment losses.

The third key rule is to take it slow. Many liked to rush things. A CEO once wanted its operations to commence within 6 months. Being too fast can cause headaches later on due to lack of planning. Attention should be focused on looking for the suitable local partner. One must be patient or risk losing out on the negotiation tables with the Chinese partner.

The fourth rule is to understand that Chinese society work in groups. The trait is reinforced by Geert Hofstede's groundbreaking research on Chinese culture. Chinese may appear individualistic to outsiders and directly conflicts with the research. This is because Chinese appear collectivist among close family members, friends and clan. They co-operate within the circle and all other outsiders must compete fairly. It is extremely difficult to attain self-organized cooperation, as highlighted by Sun Yat Sen's observation for China. Chinese counterpart will also reluctant to agree to a win-win outcome. Negotiations may be re-open anytime even an agreement seems settled. They may argue that they have not bargained well and hard enough.

In China, mistrust as well as opportunism are widespread. One must understand this fifth rule well. Either you trust wholeheartedly at first meeting or trust only after gathering enough evidence. Chinese will only trust after cross examining a potential partner. China will use its position to gain upper advantage of groups outside their clan. There is no legal mechanism for such checks and balance. Chinese are usually skeptical of outside clan members. There may be issue on enforcing contractual agreements and signed letters, and one must always have countermeasures such as withholding cash until goods are delivered and examined for completeness.

The sixth rule is that trust takes a long time to foster due to interpersonal nature of trust. It is a great defense to foster close relationships in personal of business dealings. Building personal contacts is a must for business, and takes time and patience. One must attend sporting or dinner events. Drinking alcohol is part of the role. Smart experienced negotiators often dispose the alcohol from their glass to water glasses and wet towels available in restaurants.

The seventh rule is be ready to encounter any unusual behavior that may be common in China but not in western countries. Chinese often go beyond conventional negotiation tactics. For instance, they may threaten to use political links to block the distribution rights for the western companies' products. Another case involved Chinese party getting western guests drink excessively to prevent effective negotiations. Always be on alert as well as standby defense measures. Learn to drink well or delegate drinking to team members.

The final rule is that Chinese society is very hierarchical. Decision flows from top to down approach. There is little delegation and supervisory control is high. Middle level managers have little power in decision making and their role usually functions as passing orders and execution of orders.

Currency Value

Currency Value

The RMB was found by the PBoC to be overvalued in contrary to the beliefs that this currency was undervalued. The discussion of this particular currency came to the forefront following the currency regime deregulation by the PBoC. If this organization should stop their interference, the ratio of dollar demand to supply would cause a dramatic decline in the worth of the RMB currency. This information is supported by the market operations and the actions of the investors. You may need to know that the valuation of most assets is not always indicated by the ‘market forces'.

The market forces is the balance and or ratio of supply and demand. This is not the only definition of the term as it is described in many fashion but it is generally the economic fundamentals valuation of assets. The market fundamentals that drive the demand and supply can be considered as an overvalued currency. Technical factors also drive the supply and demand of assets. They rely on the changes in terms of supply to demand that results from the activities other than what the fundamental factors create. This can be explained using China's approval of the QFII program. This program allowed investors not native to the Asian country to buy Chinese stocks. The inclusion of these Chinese stocks on the MSCI global benchmark would have or should have increased the demand immediately for Chinese stocks. This would result in the increase of prices that was unrelated to and improvement in the economy's outlook.

It is taught that if there was an increase in price, it would be by an imperceptible amount. This is due to the trading levels being consistence with the supply and demand fundamental balance. The aim is for Chinese investors to off load their stocks at the point prices are increased thanks to the foreign purchases, unfortunately this was not the case. The prices fluctuated as expected from buying and in instances where the purchases materialized. In this instance, the fundamental valuation that usually anchors of the prices was absent.

The consensus of many traders is that the fundamental valuation has no real significance to the drive of the market. This is the opposite of what is taught in schools and one might have to unlearn this notion. Instead of total rejection, it might be more beneficial to you analyze the market and identify the times and conditions the prices react to the fundamentals.

Without the intervention of the PBoC the RMB currency is sure to lose value but it is not an indication that the currency is overvalued either. The truth of the matter simply is, if you were to try and obtain information from the fundamentals it is almost assured that you will get the complete opposite of what you seek thanks to the market itself being largely driven by technical. This causes the RMB to remain undervalued but not by a whole lot.

Is it possible for the market to settle on a suitable value for RMB?

Is it possible for the market to settle on a suitable value for RMB?aDo you support free trade? Do you support supply side economics? Do you support fiscal deficit limits and debt? These are all questions that seem to be of some principles but they are not. The same can be said for the value of the RMB being determined by the market. The principles sometimes work in certain situations and fail to in others. It may be best for you to just determine the conditions that they may work. The question arises about the conditions that would make China decide on the markets setting the value of the RMB currency.

In a situation such as this, you would have to ask yourself a couple questions. Do you have any political objectives such as the redistribution of capital or plan to aid in the protection, until it reaches a level of competitiveness, of selected industries? To answer this question you may need to look at the exchange rate as a whole then decide in which direction you will move it in relation economy's fundamentals. Some of the distortions in the Chinese economy will need to be eradicated as they are responsible for weakening the mispriced economical inputs and capital. In their case it has left them with a dependence on excess capacity, debt and a state in division. Innovative incentives and created values may be shadowed by the politics.

Fossil Fuel VS Renewable Energy Resources

Fossil Fuel VS Renewable Energy Resources

China, The world's largest producer of Photovoltaic power (it is a method to convert solar energy into current) and also the largest producer and consumer of coal . China leads the world in its production of renewable energy, to that of combined production of Germany and France power plants. China is in leading production of renewable energy than fossil fuels and nuclear power. In September 2013, as an action plan, to control the air pollution, China's government desired to utilize more renewable energy as it has abundant water, wind and solar power than oil, coal and gas. In the year 2013, the coal production and consumption increased rapidly and later on, it dropped continuously by 3.7% in 2015. However the central government restricted and issued directions for construction of new coal plants in the country, and the National Energy Agency banned new constructions of coal mines for three months and sealed some thousands of small coal mines. In the year 2016, even though wind power generation capacity increased , nearly 26% of the total turbines were not utilized up to their maximum extent. Despite this, new turbines, which can generate 33 million kilowatts of electricity are installed, and now the country reached in generating the electricity to 129 million kilowatts per year. In previous years the over supply of wind turbines and the lack of smart grid to control the fluctuations resulted in the wastage of the wind, hydro and solar energy. To meet the demand and to stabilize the supply, the local government, along with some grid companies assigned power quotas to control the weakening demand. Coal plants are the easiest and fastest way towards the economic growth and in creating jobs.

Diversified Preferences

Some of the experts expressed that, the adopted policies of the local government are not appropriate and they are interrupting the development of the renewable energy sources. And others expressed that government supports fossil fuels rather than renewable resources which are cheap and supports the local people by creating the jobs. In the month of December in some parts of the country the respective authorities squeezed the production and levied more fee on wind, solar and hydro power producers and in some places the authorities reduced the price paid by the state from 40 to 75 %, to facilitate the local grid. This was strongly opposed by the renewable energy producers, this resulted a major loss for the wind energy producers. Due to the consequences, the wind power generating companies lost more than 18 billion yuan in production slots, and the world's largest wind energy firms also suffered a loss of 500 million yuan in 2015 as some of their turbines were forced to stop the production. Despite the demand drops, the local authorities support the coal fired power plants, without central government approval, approved 155 new coal power plants which is three times more that that of the approval rate of the previous year.

Increased Pressure

In the year 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in China, had set up some long term future plans and targeted to increase the production of non-fossil fuel sources to more than 90% by 2050. Coal is the cheapest source of power generator, which costs 0.3yuan for one kWh, whereas 0.6yuan for solar power. To meet the goal now the government has to impose a pollution tax or a carbon tax on producers of fossil fuels, ultimately then there will be a rise in the cost of production of electricity. If this tax is levied, then by 2020, the coal power generation cost increases to 0.85 yuan per kWh to that of 0.51 yuan and 0.62 yuan per kWh for wind and solar energy.

One of the Main Functions of the NDRC is to formulate and implement strategies of national economic and social development, annual plans, medium and long-term development plans; to coordinate economic and social development; to carry out research and analysis on domestic and international economic situation; to put forward targets and policies concerning the development of the national economy, the regulation of the overall price level and the optimization of major economic structures, and to make recommendations on the employment of various economic instruments and policies; to submit the plan for national economic and social development to the National People's Congress on behalf of the State Council.

The central government has to observe the consequences that are occurring by the local authorities and has to take certain measures to control and implement the national level policies which supports the economy's growth and works wonders.