China’s newly rich are not content with living the millionaire lifestyle. Now they want to own it too.

This week’s announcement that Italy’s Ferretti Yachts will soon be under Chinese ownership is the latest example. China’s state-owned Shandong Heavy Industry Group Co. said it will buy a 75% stake in the yachtmaker in a deal worth EUR374 million.

China’s elites are rabid consumers of the good life and luxury fashion labels have been cashing in. In addition to watches and handbags, China’s rich are spending on leisure pursuits too. High-end hotel chains in Asia in particular report a rapid increase in the number of Chinese tourists – as much as a twenty-fold surge at one resort in the Maldives since 2008.

China’s state-owned businesses have spotted the trend. For instance, China’s HNA Group is expected to beat out competition from LVMH among others to acquire high-end boutique hotel chain, Aman Resorts, in a deal worth as much as $450 million.

The new owners of Ferretti might have some problems selling more yachts at home, however—while there may be plenty of Chinese millionaires that make for potential buyers, the growth of yachting in China so far has been limited by a shortage of marinas.

– Duncan Mavin

Laurie Burkitt

Workers at one of Li Ping’s Papa John’s Pizza restaurants in Shanghai.

While businesses in China’s service sector often struggle to retain employees, Li Ping says he has had no turnover problems with his staff.

The Shanghai-based franchisee, who runs 500 Dairy Queen and Papa John’s Pizza outlets in China, hires many of his employees from a special training school in the city, called Ji Xun. It’s a school for the intellectually disabled.

Around 80 employees who have learning disabilities have been selling pizzas at 22 of Mr. Li’s Papa John’s stores or are crafting ice cream cakes at one of the Dairy Queen factories in Shanghai. They wear pins that say, “Please help me serve you better.”  It encourages customers to give feedback on the service, which may be a little slower than at other stores, Mr. Li said.

Most of the workers have been on staff for three years now, some since 2007, when Mr. Li first started hiring the disabled for several Papa Johns outlets. The average turnover rate for other employees is a year or less, Mr. Li said.

The retention rate has been an unexpected reward for Mr. Li’s hiring decision, which he first made five years ago after meeting Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver on a China visit.  “I decided that I wanted to change the culture through enterprise, through action,” Mr. Li said.

The culture Mr. Li is referring to is the one in which the mentally disabled have been shunned and shuttered from Chinese society. When Mr. Li was young, he discovered that one of his neighbors had an intellectual disability and was “treated like a prisoner,” he said. Parents of the disabled boy physically locked him up.

Disabilities within China, as with many other countries of the world, are largely seen as social stigmas. Instances in which intellectually disabled children live in isolation or do not have proper care can still be found here, said Mr. Shriver recently in an interview with China Real Time.

But China has come a very long way in recognizing the rights of the disabled, Mr. Shriver said. “A decade ago, leaders were still discussing euthanizing this subset of the population, and now there are examples of integration and inclusion into society,” he said.

In some ways, China has surpassed the U.S. in its recognition of the intellectually disabled, Mr. Shriver said, recalling a recent conversation he had with the mayor of Shanghai, Han Zheng. Mr. Han mentioned that he’d consider creating a separate civil servants exam to enable government hiring of disabled persons.

“You don’t see this kind of progress in the U.S.,” Mr. Shriver said, adding that it’s also scarce to see an entire retail outlet run by intellectually disabled staff.

Over the past decade, the creation of wealth has catapulted the quality of life for most people in China, including those with disabilities, Mr. Shriver said. The government has allocated more funding toward special education, building more schools and opening community centers across the country.

Leaders have also been eager to demonstrate that their attitudes toward the disabled are modernizing. Shanghai hosted the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2007. The nation’s largest television network, China Central Television, broadcast the events.

Government funding has helped the movement grow from having no participants a decade ago to more than 625,000 today.

There are two Papa John’s outlets in Shanghai that are fully operated by disabled employees.

Mr. Li said he’ll continue to hire more stores like this. He hopes to encourage other businesses to do the same.

–Laurie Burkitt. Follow her on Twitter @lburkitt.

Reuters

With more Chinese investors like this, Europe’s outlook might not be so bleak after all.

“When I go to Paris, it feels like I’ve returned home. My wife jokes that 400 years ago in a previous life I was French,” said Adam Tan, director of closely held HNA Group and chairman of its HNA Capital Holding financial-services arm. “She says that I have a romantic heart. I have a deep love for France.”

The sharply dressed and English-speaking Mr. Tan is in the driver’s seat of an aggressive international expansion by HNA. Chinese money has become ubiquitous around the globe, but privately-held HNA’s approach differs from that of the predominately state-owned firms that have been snapping up mines and energy resources in recent years. HNA, which focuses on transport, logistics and tourism, is buying into the services sector, an area Chinese firms have traditionally neglected overseas. And whereas Chinese investment has until recently been focused on emerging markets, HNA is more interested in developed economies. Nominally that’s because the legal system makes it easier to do business, but there seems to be more to it than that.

“Personally I really like Europe. My dream is to help my Chinese countrymen see such beautiful places” as Spain, he said. HNA’s flagship airline, Hainan Airlines, offers flights to Madrid and Barcelona.

That affection stretches to HNA deals. HNA last week backed out of deal to take a 20% stake in Spanish hotel chain NH Hoteles, paying $15 million breakup fee. But Mr. Tan holds out hope that the two firms can still come together.

“You know the song ‘Will you still love me tomorrow?’ I still love NH Hoteles, and will still love them the day after tomorrow,” said Mr. Tan. He said that love comes from NH’s ability to turn itself around and gradually reduce the size of its losses. He expects the company to post a profit in its next earnings report.

He said the feels NH Hoteles still loves him too.

– Dinny McMahon

Xinhua

Chinese leaders warn of deteriorating Euro debt crisis, stress IMF reform
Xinhua
8 (Xinhua) — Top Chinese leaders have warned of the dangers of a deteriorating European debt crisis, vowing to participate in reforms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during a two-day visit to China by the mechanism's chief, Christine Lagarde. …
IMF seeks clarity in Italy, China wants stabilityReuters
IMF chief holds talks in China amid eurozone turmoilEconomic Times
IMF chief urges 'political clarity' in Greece, ItalyAFP
BusinessWeek -NEWS.com.au
all 770 news articles »

]]> http://www.sinolinx.com/20111111/chinese-leaders-warn-of-deteriorating-euro-debt-crisis-stress-imf-reform-xinhua/feed/ 0 http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNE8HhvMcXj3WMsIngmnz9jHnAlaLw&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203804204577017513471202188.html?mod=googlenews_wsj http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNE8HhvMcXj3WMsIngmnz9jHnAlaLw&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203804204577017513471202188.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 11:43:28 +0000 admin http://www.sinolinx.com/?guid=c355d3da3e3b497f5460da9b2c7058dc
Wall Street Journal

Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

Worker dedication may not be the root cause of China’s and India’s booming economies.

Among all the possible explanations for why China and India have experienced explosive economic growth in recent years, worker dedication doesn’t appear to be one of them.

According to a new Harris International survey on worker absences, workers in China and India – the world’s second and 10^th largest economies, respectively – are the most likely to take bogus sick days.

The survey, conducted on behalf of Massachusetts-based workforce management firm Kronos, found Chinese workers were the most likely to play hooky, with 71% admitting they had called in sick despite not actually being sick. India came in second with 62% of workers copping to the lie.

France finished last (or first?) with 16% while the U.S. (52%) and U.K. (43%) finished in the middle.

The survey, based on responses from more than 9,000 people in eight countries, was conducted in July and did not include a sampling error.

Does this mean Chinese and India workers are lazier than their French counterparts? Not necessarily.

As Joyce Maroney, director of Kronos-sponsored think tank the Workforce Institute, points out in an interview with Reuters, France is among the most generous countries in giving workers paid time off with a mandated minimum of 30 days per year. China (10 days minimum) and India (12 days minimum), meanwhile, are among the worst.

“One could surmise that in those countries where more paid time off is given, people are less compelled to call in sick when they are not actually sick,” Ms. Maroney said in the interview.

Vacation time has been the subject of fierce debate in China, particularly since 2007, when the country abolished the long May Day “Golden Week” holiday and replaced it with three shorter holidays spread throughout the year. Among the complaints: Chinese companies were hesitant to grant paid holidays at other times of the year.

“Chinese people play hooky so they don’t die on the job,” joked a user of China’s popular Sina Weibo microblogging service writing under the name Xingruyu2001 in response to the survey results. “The worker’s compensation claims would be an inconvenience to our leaders.”

In India, meanwhile, part of the issue is also the contrast between the busy workaholic ethos of the city and the leisurely pace of traditional Indian family life.

“In the village, I could go to work whenever I wanted and take rest when needed,” says Amit Kumar, a 18-year-old worker at a New Delhi restaurant who recently arrived in the city from a village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Here I hardly get any leave and it’s always work.” He says he feigns sickness once or twice a month and goes to visit new places in the city or simply rests at his room. His friends at the restaurant also do so, he says.

While China had the highest percentage of respondents – 45% — saying they thought employers could solve the problem by providing more time off, only a quarter of Indian workers felt the same way.

Interestingly, China and India were among the only places were a majority of workers said employers used an automated system to keep track of absences – something Kronos elsewhere claims can increase a company’s bottom line by as much as 10%.

– Josh Chin, with contributions from Krishna Pokharel.

Agence France-Presse

The Dalai Lama at the event organized by India’s National Commission for Minorities, in New Delhi, Wednesday

The Dalai Lama considers himself a “son of India,” both “physically and mentally” after years of following the teachings of Indian gurus and eating “Indian daal and rice.”

The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism has been based in the Indian Himalayan town of Dharamsala since he fled Tibet in the late 1950s, when Chinese troops entered the region.

Yet there is one thing about his country of adoption he finds hard to swallow: corruption, which on Wednesday he described as “immense.”

Speaking in New Delhi at an event organized by India’s National Commission for Minorities, the Dalai Lama said that despite India’s impressive “material development” there is still “a lot of corruption.” This was “obviously due to a lack of moral ethics,” he explained to an audience that included Salman Khurshid, India’s minority affairs and law minister, a smattering of Tibetan monks and Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Gopalakrishnan Gandhi.

While the 76-year old Nobel Laureate didn’t draw attention to particular cases of corruption in India, his remarks came on the day that a parliamentary committee working on an anti-corruption draft law–the Lokpal bill–was set to meet social activists who are critical of the proposed legislation, saying it doesn’t go far enough.

China, unsurprisingly, also got caught in the cross-fire. Corruption is “immense” there as well, the Dalai Lama said, matter-of-factly. After all “they are non-believers…they believe in power and money.”

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