We are starting with a regular newsletter, likely to be monthly, focusing on China’s economy, environment, business and any topic that merits a closer look.
I started using MailChimp, the first email looks a bit weird as something did not go right with the font. Lots to learn I guess.
This is the first edition, looking into the Chinese real estate market, to give an overall view on what real estate companies, news media and economists are talking about. Certainly a hot topic, as hot as the Beijing weather.
To get your copy, download here:
140603 real estate
Comments and suggestions are welcome!

On 4 April we participated in the celebration of 56 years of independence of Senegal, in the China World Hotel.
We accompanied one of our major clients, China State Grid Group, to meet with diplomats from Senegal, where we are currently looking at projects.

We also met several with other diplomats and ambassadors, one being my Rotarian friend Jean-Claude Apithy from Benin.
I am always impressed with the large crowd, the absence of Western guests and … the good food.

BIMBA: International Programs of the National School of Development – Peking University,
Beijing International MBA (BiMBA). Every year I meet the MBA group from Vlerick Belgium for a Q&A session “All the Questions You Have About China (and you did not dare to ask)”. Usually done as a small panel, with Prof. Tony, and they last for at least 90 minutes.

I love the sessions as they can be challenging, letting the students ask whatever they feel like. Students are not only from Belgium, we had also some people from Russia, among others. See here the session on 10 April in Beijing University.

Yeah, a weird title but that was the subject for the afternoon meeting in the Embassy of Belgium on 25 March, organized by Bencham. The meeting was attended by the Ambassador Michel Malherbe and other senior staff of the embassy.
The topic was the survey, done for a second year, on the performance of the Belgian companies in China in 2013.
The survey was done by “Moore Stephens Verschelden” and their delegates Andy Verschelden and Scott Krivokopich gave us an overview.

There are an estimated 300 Belgian companies in China. The survey worked with a total of 42 companies, and near 30 were Belgian.
I don’t try to give a full overview of the findings but these were the points I noted:
– More than 85% reported revenue growth
– increased turnover
– overall very optimistic on revenue growth for 2014 despite the economic slowdown
– most negative issue: salary cost; difficulty in finding the right people and retaining the staff
– biggest concern for 2014 is meeting sales target while in the previous year the focus was on labor cost
– pollution is indeed becoming an issue affecting business and staffing.
As a frequent speaker myself I noticed (twice in the embassy) people setting up a projector and laptop in a poor way: the (big) projector sits too high, blocking the view and the presenter often blocks the projector and mostly the slides. As a result I could see only part of the slides.
On another note: the estimate of Belgians residing in Beijing is 500 to 600.