China * General Overview

China (traditional Chinese: 中國; simplified Chinese: 中国; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhongguó; Hanyu Pinyin:  Zhōngguó; Wade-Giles (Mandarin): Chung¹kuo²) is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia.

China has one of the world’s oldest civilizations and has the oldest continuous civilization.

China has archaeological evidence dating back over 5,000 years. It also has one of the world’s oldest written language system, and is viewed as the source of many major inventions.

Economy Overview

Under Hu and Wen, who became leaders of China in 2003, the Chinese government continued to give up grounds to private enterprise, yet increased its interference in other areas.

The new premier, Wen Jiabao, reinstated some Mao-Era social systems, such as social security, as well as sponsoring a new initiative in health care which the state retook control of hospitals from many contractors who had run it since two decades earlier. However, this was reversed in 2009.

Nevertheless, During the 1990s, Premier Zhu Rongji started a policy of privatizing money-losing state enterprises. In 1997, the CPC issued a verdict declaring that state-owned companies were now “people-owned companies” who would be subject to mergers and bankruptcy. Thousands of state companies were nationalized or partly floated on the stock exchange.

In 1978, more than 90% of GDP was produced in state enterprises, which, up to 1992, dominated China’s economy. That figure, not accounting for state assets that were contracted, had fallen to 30% by 2009.

China’s economy continued to grow. In 2008, however, it was affected by the global financial meltdown and the growth rate fell to 9.0%.

As of 2008, China’s GDP (PPP) was between 50 and 60 percent of the GDP (PPP) of the US, while over 10 percent of world GDP (PPP).

To offset the effects of the global economic crisis, the government announced a financial stimulus of around $586 billion spread over two years. However, new spending by the government was actually only about 1180 billion yuan ($130 billion), the rest being spending already part of the government’s budget.

Who are the members in BusinessClub.MY that I can contact?

Currently, we are establishing linking with CIRA, MayCham (Shanghai), Shenzen’s CYG (深圳创业港, an enterpreneurs association), Beijing’s Enterpreneur Society (中国创业家协会) and several other business related associations.

Any further information I can get for my business in China?

Once we setup the business points, we will put the associate links in this section.