Research & Analysis

During the annual Two Sessions meetings last weekend, China’s political leaders announced their economic growth targets for 2017. Given the deliberately crafted nature of the Work Report, slight changes in the way the government presents issues can signal shifts in policies and priorities. While China’s 2017 GDP target appears a logical continuation of recent growth objectives at first glance, its careful wording delicately recalibrates expectations of the economy’s performance for the coming years.

Many American companies have realized the potential of the $400 billion China market. While some have failed to expand their businesses into China, others have succeeded and reaped the significant rewards that China’s consumer base offers, which has grown to over 300 million according to the Oxford Economics study on US jobs and trade with China. Airbnb and Yum Brands, the parent company of KFC, have successfully adopted measures to align their business practices with Chinese markets. Analyzing their methods can identify some best practices for American businesses seeking to enter the China market.

China launched a two-invoice system for drug distribution on a trial basis to improve transparency in drug prices and eliminate excessive profit margins associated with multi-tier distribution models. This is the first time Chinese regulators have officially launched the two-invoice system, which had been debated for more thana decade. The system is expected to be fully implemented in public hospitals by the end of 2018.

Heidrick & Struggles China recently conducted a survey of 151 senior executives at director level or above in mainland China to understand how extensively employer branding affects corporate success, and the factors that attract them to and retain them at an organization.

Labor dispatch is an important option for foreign companies in China that require a low cost and flexible hiring process. Whether it is a company that needs to staff a short-term project within a demanding deadline, or one that needs to hire temporary workers to support its business during start-up, labor dispatch proves a top choice compared with other traditional recruitment methods.

On April 19, 2017 the US-China Business Council held a discussion with Matthew Pottinger, the Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. Pottinger provided his views on the meeting of Presidents Trump and Xi at Mar-a-Lago and on the development of President Trump’s China policies.

Industrial action in China entered uncharted territory last year. Labor unrest was previously confined for the most part to the manufacturing and construction sectors – the traditional linchpins of China’s growth. In 2016, however, it spread into the retail and service sectors, with strike action doubling in the former and growing by a fifth in the latter.When combined with incidents in the transport sector – which continued its upwards surge by a 25 percent increase – labor strikes in these three sectors outweighed those in manufacturing for the first time.