India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and China’s Finance Minister Lou Jiwei will hold the 8th round of Indian-China Financial Dialogue talks next month. Mr. Jaitley is scheduled to visit China with the Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, from July 19-24 for the G20 meeting of Finance Ministers. The financial dialogue will, therefore, be held at that time.
The seventh dialogue of this sort was held in New Delhi in 2014. Learn more details about these meetings.
Ford is creating some changes in China and India with its finance and business strategy teams. Stuart Rowley, who has been the vice president and controller is moving to be the vice president of strategy. John Lawler, the current vice president and CEO of Ford China, will now become the controller.
Ford’s operations in China will now be spearheaded by Dave Schoch and he will take on the title of CEO of Ford China. As Ford CEO Mark Fields explained in a statement,
“Stuart and John have played key roles in delivering Ford’s long-term growth strategy and strong financial performance. These moves are part of our commitment to continue developing our leadership team.”
Learn more details about these moves.
A major Chinese financial firm has just created a new partnership with startup R3CEV. Ping An Insurance Group is joining the group. As David Rutter, the CEO and founder of R3 said,
“The addition of Ping An is another important milestone for R3 as we develop our member network to represent the interests of banks and financial institutions operating in markets around the globe.”
One of the most notable things about this partnership is that Ping An operates within China. R3 already has members from Asia, Europe and North America but this addition is ground-breaking.
Learn more about the partnership and the influence it will have.
China has just started a value-added tax (VAT) system across all industries that used to have a business tax. This is the most ambitious overhaul of their tax regime that they’ve had in three decades. They have created tough reforms in their transition to being a services-oriented economy, rather than one powered by manufacturing.
The government first started to think about VAT in 1979 and they started using the tax in 2012. The final four sectors that they have added the VAT to include construction, property, finance and life services.
Consumers will feel the VAT in different ways depending on what they are buying, according to China’s Vice Minister Shi Yaobin. The revenue from the VAT will be shared between China’s central and local governments and each will receive 50%.
China Rapid Finance, which operates mainland’s fastest-growing online consumer lending platform, is looking for larger partnerships with internet companies and data firms. They want to cover the 500 million people who can’t borrow money from traditional financial organizations.
Zane Wang Zhengyu, the chairman and chief executive of China Rapid Finance, has called these outliers EMMA, China’s emerging middle-class. They are, as he says, mobile-active consumers who don’t have a formal credit history. As Wang explained, “With data from the digital footprints of these people from their internet and mobile usage, we can use our proprietary technology to establish credit scores.”
China Rapid Finance has 600,000 active borrowers. Last year, they partnered with Tencent Holdings to create a campaign to offer pre-approved low-cost and low-interest loands to almost 50 million users.
As Wang said,“We are very much interested in all data partners. We do not want to exclude anyone.”
Learn more about China Rapid Finance.
Marketing and advertising journal Ad Age named Los Angeles businessman Adam Roseman to their annual list of 40 Under 40 in recognition of his achievements in the marketing and advertising industry.
Roseman is the CEO and Co-Founder of FansTang, a Western digital entertainment company selling content in China.
“I’m honored to be recognized by Advertising Age amongst all the other established, talented industry leaders,” said Roseman. “I’m extremely proud of what our business has achieved. Our strategy is built around utilizing our extensive data analytics and production capabilities to create positive and localized international content consistent with Chinese culture and appealing to Chinese millennial consumers. In 2016, we will continue to focus on producing and curating high quality digital content, expanding our brand partnerships and further developing our exceptional international team.”
Roseman founded FansTang in 2012. It is wholly owned by its parent company, China Branding Group, which specializes in providing western digital media to meet China’s growing demand for localized international content. With offices in Los Angeles, Beijing and Shanghai, Roseman and his teams have launched into new markets for their Chinese and Western entertainment content collaboration.
FansTang is China’s largest provider of localized international content of live events, social media, and non-studio Hollywood and related video content into the Chinese marketplace.
In recent news, Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. will be purchasing a buying control of AGTech Holdings Ltd. for $308 million. The goal is to boost the lottery business in China. Ali Fortune Investment Holdings Ltd. will end up owning about 59.45% of the company according to a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
AGTech runs lotteries in many provinces in China and it will now expand its games, hardware and distribution across the country. Alibaba and its affiliate will be helping AGTech with cloud computing. Ali Fortune is 60% owned by Alibaba and 40% owned by Alipay-operator Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financing Services Group.
Read the whole story and all of the details here.
An upcoming lecture should be quite interesting for those with their eye on China and its economy. Penelope (Penny) Prime, the Director of the China Research Center and Professor of International Business at Georgia State University, will be part of a finance symposium on March 28 and 29th at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center. The conference will address the changing shape of China’s economy. The conference is called Furniture/Today’s Money Matters 2.0: Outpacing Change Through Financial Excellence.
Topics that she will cover include China’s economy and business environment, China’s foreign trade and investment, China’s industrial and technological progress and applied business and economics cases on China and Asia.
Learn more about the conference and how to be involved.
JD.com Inc. has said that its financial subsidiary has raise $1 billion in financing. In this financing round, lead investors include Sequoia Capital China and China Taiping Insurance. They have valued the e-commerce company JD.com’s JD Finance subsidiary at $7 billion.
JD.com has said that it will continue to have majority ownership in JD Finance and that the transaction should be completed in the first half of the year.
Read the whole story to learn more.
Woolworths is turning to China and hoping that they will want to be part of Australia’s largest supermarket chain. They plan to build a Woolworths storefront on Alibaba’s Tmall business-to-consumer online marketplace, coordinated by China-based eCargo Holdings.
eCargo will be tasked with coordinating Woolworths’ inventory, packing and distribution requirements and they will advise on brand entry strategy and more.
Woolworths has a small presence in China already after buying the alcoholic drinks distributor Summergate last year for $25 million.
As eCargo Chairman John Lau said, “We believe the food and groceries segment will experience huge growth in the coming years between Australia and China, as cross-border trade restrictions ease and the China Australia FTA takes effect.”
Others have, similarly, had their eye on the e-commerce market in China. Amazon, Macy’s and Germany’s Metro have all entered the online market platforms run by Alibaba and JD.com to cater to the growing Chinese design for imported consumer good. The Chinese e-commerce market has been forecast to more than double over the next three years to $1.5 trillion, according to NY based research firm eMarketer. And certainly, everyone, including Woolworths, wants to be part of that opportunity.