WTO_last day, but no end yet

It is the last day for the WTO MC6 in Hong Kong. But seems until now 4pm in the afternoon, no one, including those one sitting in the negotiation room, knows what will happen. Over 1000 reporters, including me, are hanging around now, waiting for the final result to come out(I planned to rush into the negotiation room and shout at them: what are you folks really doing here?)

European Union has become the one to affect the process in the last minute, widely reported by the media. "Everyone is ganging up at me", said European Union Commissioner Peter Mandelson in the conference, described by one attendant. United States is also struggling from the talks with West Africa countries.

Leading developing countries already agreed to eliminate the export subsidies before 2013, while Brazile is arguing the deadline should be 2010.

U.S. is worries about textile import from Bangladesh and Cambodia, claimed to be the reason why they are reluctant on giving the least developing countries tarriff and quota free system.

And so on....

WTO has become a place for everyone to speak up, though U.S. and EU are still the two speakers with biggest voice....

Who will lose and who will win?

Amy_crazy in WTO MC6

Writing always needs strength, someone said before. Amy finally get that strength to go back to my blog. After some rest at home, Amy is now crazy in the fantastic WTO Ministerial Conference 6 in Hong Kong.

Described as a conference which will not get a satisfied result, the city, Hong Kong, still trys to show ministers from the world its full energy and good management.

"If no achievement could happen in such a beautiful city as Hong Kong, how ministers do that in the other cities", said Bo Xilai, Chinese Commerce Minister, who leaded a over-100-delegate group to attend the conference.

Unfortunately, Bo's colleagues are not open as Bo does. They refuse to talk to media; no press briefing; no attending the public debate; not to say to communicate with the non-profit organizations from China, though there are only two.

We could say China's low profile is its way to avoid attack; but in such an organization with 144 members, how you could avoid attack? U.S. is there, speaking, though under attack; European Union is there, under attack, too. But at least they show their attitude, make their negotiation transparent. On the other side, see developing countries who are more poor and smaller than China, they are also giving their voices. It is an organization, where everyone will forget, or discrimate you when you don't speak anything.

In such a worldwide conference, I know we could justify a country's strength from its economy, or population; let's hear its voice publicly......

Amy_back home

Amy seems disappearing for a long time, right? yeah, Amy is back home from Hong Kong. My hometown is a beautiful seaside town near Beijing. It is cold right now, but warm in my house.

People always need to recharge the "internal batteries", said one of my online friends Lutz. The words are so cute ,right? everyone has the battery inside the body, and you know what's that, isn't it?

It feels so good if you know somebody in somewhere will always miss you and bless you, then you forget all the unhappiness.

Give everyone best wishes. Have a happy week as Amy do....

Media_a local newspaper got a office explosion

Ming Pao, one of the oldest newspaper in Hong Kong, had one of its editorial office exploding at 2:50 after receiving a parcel. A secretary was injured and send to the hospital. A letter in the parcel asked the newspaper to send 30 million to an account in a non-profit organization in Hong Kong.

Terrorism visited Hong Kong??? Or what?

Law_managing a nation, by human or by law?

I am thinking this question for days. China has been a nation with thousands of years governed by human. Now the President Hu said the country should be regulated by law. Is that possible for such a big nation with a so large population?

Read a pretty interesting message yesterday. Shenzhen Development Bank, the only foreign-controlled joint-stock lender in China, said it has received notice from China Securties Regulatory Commission, asking for the return of a back-up loan. The loan once belonged to a already two bankrupted securties companies .

The message said: The regulator asked us twice to pay back the money, with the warning to send us to the court. But we haven't done that yet coz our lawyer doesn't think we have to pay. So far, no suit.

Bank_CCB listed tomorrow

China Construction Bank, whose innitial public offering in Hong Kong ranks as the largest in the world this year, will be listed today. Fund managers are guessing how the share will perform in the following days. Some are saying the price will not fall by more than 10 percent, while some other guess a slight increase.

My question is who will decide the share price. Of course, it is not just the investors. Say, Refco, the New York-based future brokerage, has applied for protection of bankruptcy because of its Chairman's scandel. The two companies, refco and CCB, are different due to the business nature, but they both have "dirty" chairmans. How do investors consider them so differently?

Bank_CCB listed tomorrow

China Construction Bank, whose innitial public offering in Hong Kong ranks as the largest in the world this year, will be listed tomorrow. Fund managers are guessing how the share will perform in the following days. Some are saying the price will not fall by more than 10 percent, while some other guess a slight increase.

My question is who will decide the share price. Of course, it is not just the investors. Say, Refco, the New York-based future brokerage, has applied for protection of bankruptcy because of its Chairman's scandel. The two companies, refco and CCB, are different due to the business nature, but they both have "dirty" chairmans. How do investors consider them so differently?

Blog_a fantastic blog stock website

Wanna to know how much a blog is worth? how many people trade on your blog everyday? Here is a blog stock website I recommend: Blogshares

My blog already worths more than B$3000, and takes 0.006 percent market share.

Try to search your blog? Maybe it is already owned by others as mine is...... I will try to get it on whatever the expense is:)

Bank_China Construction Bank listed in Hong Kong

The innitial public offering of China Construction bank, due to be listed in Hong Kong a week later, will raised the largest amount of money in the world this year.

So what? CCB is only the third-largest bank in China, While the first two, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China are still waiting in the queue.

I discussed with some colleagues about the reason why investors are interested in China Construction bank. He said people think CCB are the healthies among the Big Four(State-owned banks in China), coz it is the earliest-listing one.

Then I ask:

If the government asked the bank to do something but shareholder didn't agree, then what will the bank do?

He shrugged his shoulders without saying anything.

I am wondering the answer, too.

City_Where should I find some events?

It is always terrible to make friends in Hong Kong though the city is tiny. Anyone have idea where I could go to in weekends to meet some interesting and nice people? Shanghai has an event named YPHH, Young Professional Happy Hours, where you could make friends with many. Seems we don't have it here, right?

Media_Social network matters

When Internet has turned to P2P from client-server model, the network's relation changes, too.

Yahoo, once famous as the portal, now thinks bigger in setting up social network. It has bought upcoming.org to enhance its strategy to manage people's social calendars, share information about upcoming events like local concerts and festivals.

Upcoming.org's idea is fantastic; but I am afraid how it is developed after being bought. M&A sometimes helps dinimishing, hope not this time.

Economy_another financial crisis in Hong Kong??

He Xin, a left-wing academic in China, said Hong Kong will have another financial crisis by the Spring next year in an interview. I totally agree, though it is a little risky to give such a clear schedule.

Hong Kong successfully avoided the huge suffer in 1997's crisis, partly because of Chinese government's help. But at that time, Hong Kong's economy was not dependent on China, especially the stockmarket. Not many big Chinese companies were listed in Hong Kong.

See now, it is hard to count by fingers how many mainland companies are listed here, including the state-owned giant such as China Mobile and the future listed- China Construction Bank. If China's economy is not performing that well, or the investors lost confidence in the nation, Hong Kong's stockmarket will be hit hugely, while it is hard for Hong Kong government to help as it did in 1997.

The only thing for Hong Kong to be lucky is to make sure China's economy go on well. But that's not easy too. As the academic said, the biggest problem in China is the growing unemployment rate. When the number becomes higher and higher, it will hurt internal need as well as social stability. But I wonder if there is someone really care about that, even the government?

I just interviewed a Hong Kong company who is involved in the infrastructure construction in China. It said that it will reduce half of the people in the Chinese company, once state-owned, in five years coz they think the human resources in Chinese companies are alwasy redundant. But how about those poor people? What will they do to support their families? Without the government, the capitalists will never care about these things, right? And even worse, there's not strong worker unions in China.

Should someone care?

Society_consider things in different concept

Amy is always a fun of science fiction, in other words, Amy loves dreaming of the world. But Amy felt bad when hearing another bombing in Bali island, Indonesia, though she was enjoying her favorite ice-cream? Gosh, is it the peaceful earth everyone loves?

Different thinking way make people do different things. If those two Malaysians, who is guessed to start the bombing in Bali, could think more about individual's lives beyond their own religion, then they might not do such things to kill more than 25 people who are totally innocent.

That's how human think. Sometimes we thing big, sometimes we think small, but the best way to decide our doings is to try to balance those big things and small things.

Think large: we are living in the earth, which is, as far as we know, the only planet in the universe. So all humans are in a family where we should help each other to protect our home. One example is the earth environment protection association.

Think smaller: we have different countries, where people speak different languages and have different culture. For example, I am a Chinese, which make me always feel close to the people with same nationality; I tend to speak and write in Chinese, and I would like to maintain the Chinese culture for the 5000 years.

Think smaller and smaller: Each person has his or her own life, family and friends. They need to work to support themselves and relatives. They have to think about their own staffs.

So how large/small do you think every day?

See: blogs who already reported and commented on the latest Bali bombing

IT_Why Hong Kong is hard for IT guys?

"Don't join the IT company in Hong Kong, or you will have no future". Friends always warn me.

Really? Are Hong Kong people are so afraid of developing IT business, or they are not that smart to be involved in the business?

Hong Kong is one of the most developed cities in telecommunications, with advanced products and cheap fees. But the IT stocks are not that welcomed by investors compared with Nasdaq in United States. Richard Li, the son of Li Ka-Ching, the riches Asian billionaire, once invested a lot in the business.but then shifted to properties and seems never step into the IT now.

Does that mean it is an opportunity or a doomed business in the city? Anyone having idea?

Banking_why Chinese banks are attractive?

The latest news in China's banking industry is Hua Xia bank is went after by many foreign banks such as Deutche Bank and Singapore DBS. As one of the five listed bank in China, it may be famous but I am sorry I never use its service before. Just wonder why it is so attractive in a near-double price that its paper value in the stocks.

Foreign banks have their own reason to buy to try to grab a bit before the other competitors get into the China. But the problem is not all the banks are well set up. Not to say the state-owned ones, but the private-developed banks are learning bad habits for the goverment-backed ones. The only good bank I think is China Mercants Bank, for its efficiency service and advanced web system. The only advantage is it is not government-backed, which means it couldn't enjoy the benefits as those giant and slow banks do.

I always think there are problems between China's fast developing economy and its weak banking system. In some means, the banking system on the typical examples based on the political systems.

If banking systems develop in a foreign way,how about the political system?

Business_Do social network website still popular

Someone just invited me to WAYN-Where are you now, a new website for social network in the world where you could make new friends. The business idea is really boring, though the website's design is not bad. You have to fill in a lot of private information to register and then you could either look for new friends or invite friends there, which is already a niche business idea among social network wesbites. Say, Linkedin, Friendster, and so many.

How those social network websites make money? Some of them via getting subscription fee from VIP users, some of them via advertisement, but the money is not that fat.

One of the most popular social-network websites in China is Chinaren, a website famous for its groups for alumnies. I would say, 80 percent of the university graduates own a Chinaren account and go there at least once a week. That's really huge. But the website itself, though that popular, is not making huge money. It was bought by Sohu, one of the three biggest portal websites in China. After the deal, the only advantage is the user could access to Chinaren via a Sohu account.

"How the website didn't make money with so many middle and high-end customers?" One of the friends who invests in Internet in China asked.

I don't know. The only reason is that some websites are good at attracting customers; some are good at creating new making-money idea. But only a few could do both.

of course, Google is one of those who have done both. And others?

P.S. not sure what Ebay could do with Skype. If it only makes the recently-bought Skype do the same thing as it did to Paypal, I would like to say the deal will be a failure.

People_interview with state-owned company officials

As I cover mainland but not live there, I have to make hundreds of calls per day to try to get the right and prompt information. It is always interesting to talk to people on the phone, where you always have to know people's thinking and opinions just via their voice.

Not many, or only a few people are nice to the reporters, especially someone from outside. Sometimes, they said they didn't know anything though they did; sometimes, they would introduce the reporter to someone else, whose phone never get through; sometimes, they even joked at me:

Amy: Hi, is there ****? I am the reporter from ****

Someone: Hmmm, why not you call 110? (110 is the emergency number in the mainland) (Then he quickly hung up)

I stucked at the words for almost half a minute, just wonder if it is a joke, or he is really serious...


That's why I kind of felt scared before calling someone in mainland. You will never know what you will get next, though someone's mother told "Life is just a box of chocalate".

This time, I tried to call a company Cinda Asset Management Co. which is one of the four state-backed bad loan clearers in China. And they are nice. Out of my expectation.

I called two people, one in Beijing and another in Northern Heilongjiang.

Beijing guy is conservative and really knows his responsibility on what could be given to reporters and what couldn't. But the point is he is nice to every question in the whole process, without any urgent feeling to hang up the phone. I was flattered, to tell the truth. As an official in the state-owned company, he could just do his job, without talking with media. But he don't.

Heilongjiang guy is more open compared with Beijing guys. (I guess he doesn't know how distructive media will be sometimes) He is willing to give any information, and willing to answer questions with all he knows. At last, he even said "welcome calling me back". I was flattered further by the email I got from him after I sent him my contacts the day before. The email says" sorry for the late response, I got your contact". Wow...

I am always interested in digging into the interviewees to study on Chinese's character, also including mine. Sometimes I am too open to the local, sometimes I am too conservative to the world. In such a world city like Hong Kong, I am still looking for enough confidence in my country. Experienced in a changing process in this one hundred year, Chinese are changing fast, from proud to scare, to conservative, to.. I believe it will work back to the start finally that everyone's mind will be peaceful.

link to the story: http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=1&art_id=1370&sid=4562115&con_type=1&d_str=20050915

People_met a Thailand millionaire

Though Ranked in the Forbes billionaire list, Dhanin Chearavanont couldn't be easily recognized as one of the world's riches men just via the look. He is outspoken and nice, with a speak style like the one of the Chinese leaders. One thing why I liked him is he praised me my question in the press conference as the best one among all. Haha, but the contradicting problem is if I could do a good journalist job when the interviewees tell me the questions are good.

As a expert in feed industry in China, Chearavanont has leaded Chia Tai group into the top company selling feed meal in China, with almost 7 percent of the market share among the nation. His next aim is to do more value-added work on the raw meal and eggs. "China is a big market for eggs, chickens and porks", he said. "We want to be the kitchen for China".

Is it easy? of course not. With the hard competition and people's remaining scare towards chicken and pork, it is difficult for Chia Tai group to make a big step to change everything. Also, people's eating habit has gradually changed from meat-focused to vegetable-focused, which may lead to a decrease in China's meat industry(BTW, diary products really did good these years)

The billionaire is also interested in doing supermarket business. The "lotus" supermarkets in China has been expanded to 51 among the nation, though it is not famous as Walmart and Carrefour.

But investing in the agricultural industry is more safe than investing in others. People need to eat whatever time, right? In that sense, this billionaire is smart.

The link to my story: http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=2&art_id=1283&sid=4545754&con_type=1&d_str=20050914

Media_what's the potential future for newspapers?

Have you still read newspaper? I guess more than 50 percent of the youth between 20 to 25 would say no. Even before I work in the current newspaper, I don't read it in print, too. So does newspaper still have the market?

Newspaper is hard to report spot news now coz it couldn't report it anytime as Internet/wires do. Newspaper stories are also not research-based and well-written as reporters don't have enough time to cover all in one day. The only advantage for newspaper is that some readers are still used to reading newspaper every day, not every second, or every week. But will that last long?

Some newspaper does a good job. New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times still post good-quality articles as well as inside news. But for the others, the job is easies, with following news wires and writing simple stories, which could only keep current readers without expanding more.

So what's the future for newspapers????

Opinion_enjoy a free weekend

After started working again, suddenly I feel the importance of a free weekend.

Slept at 3 am in the evening, I got up pretty late today, almost 11am. Wearing my favorite clothes, I got to a famour Chinese restaurant in the downtown. Though my friend came an hour late, I enjoy a fantastic meal with her in a nice mood. We eat the traditional Chinese morning tea as well as the most popular dessert in the restaurant. At last, I gave the manager a big smie.

After that, I went back to school to enjoy the fresh air here. Sitting in the computer roon, I viewed all the blogs in my portofolio that were missed in the working day, also I read many interesting news(not in financial sector, of course). I even go to a science fiction website in my university to download the list for SF films and fictions. I may write some of the science fiction in the future.

There may be a gathering in the evening. If not, I will go back home and work on my SF plan. Amy is always a SF fun and believes in the stuffs such as time travel and butterfly effect. Hoho, my dream is to be a SF writer, though it is still too early to say.

Tomorrow is free, too. No plan yet, but there will be some interesting things to do.