Lower Threshold

A new foreign investment law will ease restrictions on foreign investors and grant them easier access to the Chinese market, the Ministry of Commerce said recently. Overseas companies will receive pre-establishment national treatment and the current troublesome case-by-case approval system will be replaced by Negative List management, if the new law is passed. Only foreign investment on the Negative List will have to apply for permission, but all investors must report to the government no matter whether they are on the list or not. According to the new law, enterprises will not be regulated based on their ownership but on who is in control.

Existing Fund Activated

The State Council announced fiscal policy plans to stabilize economic growth. It said that central government departments and local governments should reallocate any unspent money from the 2012 fiscal year and before that to the new budgets. The aim is to "activate existing funds" and ensure a more proactive fiscal policy is implemented. China's economy in 2014 posted its weakest annual expansion in 24 years, which may lead to slower growth in national fiscal revenue and higher expenditure. A pilot scheme, starting this year, will establish a three-year rolling budget in sectors such as compulsory education, health care and environmental protection to achieve targets.

Salary Growth Prospects

Companies are likely to invest more in benefits, training and career development to attract and retain the best talent this year, said a recent annual Global Salary Survey from global specialist professional recruitment consultancy firm Robert Walters. The survey suggests that job movers received 15-25 percent salary growth on average in 2014 while those who stayed at their current companies received increments ranging between 6-8 percent. These trends will continue in 2015. The survey also indicates that professionals now view Chinese companies as an attractive employment option due to their promising prospects and competitive remuneration packages, which often include employee stock options.

WeChat Advertisement

WeChat, now China's most-used instant messaging smartphone app with about 468 million monthly active users, has kicked off an advertising program on its content-sharing platform. Advertisements for Coca-Cola Co., BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. and smartphone maker Vivo Communication Technology Co. Ltd. were shown in January in the Moments timeline of WeChat, which is run by Tencent Holdings Ltd. The advertisements look like Facebook's News Feed, and users are given the right to opt out of the advertisements if they are not interested. Tencent said that "a rather intelligent technology" is used to push the advertisements to their targeted audiences or, in other words, different WeChat users will receive different advertisements. The advertising program marked a major step in WeChat's commercialization.

Budget Airline Listed

Spring Airlines became China's first budget carrier to list after its initial public offering (IPO) of 2.5 billion yuan ($410 million) on the Shanghai Stock Exchange recently. The stock, with up to 100 million shares, rose to the limit on its first day of trading, closing at 26.15 yuan ($4.21) per share from its issue price of 18.16 yuan ($2.92). The company said in its IPO prospectus that it planned to raise funds to purchase nine new Airbus 320 aircraft as well as three new flight simulators. Industrial observers said the stock of Spring Airlines is much higher than those of China's four listed commercial airlines, including Air China and China Eastern Airlines, indicating the carrier's stronger profitability.

Illegal Trading Punished

Eleven fund management companies were penalized for insider and rat trading, said the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Five fund management companies, including China AMC and HFT Investment Management Co. Ltd., have been prohibited from handling public fund registration for three to six months, while another six firms were asked to rectify their practices by the CSRC. The securities regulator launched a crackdown, focusing on 15 fund management companies, last December.

Numbers

1.29%

Non-performing loan ratio of China's commercial banks in the fourth quarter of 2014

648 million

China's netizen population at the end of 2014

928,000 I

nvention patent applications accepted in China in 2014

0.8%

China's consumer price index growth year on year in January

$1 million

Grant from African Development Bank to fight against plague in Madagascar

34.2%

Ghana's producer price indexin December 2014