AmCham South China Special Business Report

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GUANGZHOU, Mar. 11 – The American Chamber of Commerce in South China launched its 2011 special report on the state of business in South China on March 1 as well as a white paper on the business environment across China.

The special report details the results of a survey conducted by AmCham South China among the association’s members from December 2010 to February 2011, with the aim of reporting the pulse of the current economic situation. It also presents an in-depth economic overview of Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong and Macau provided by the foreign investment consulting firm Dezan Shira & Associates.

Of the 437 members that answered the questionnaire, around 80 percent of them are headquartered in Guangzhou or Shenzhen and have their parent or holding company in the United States (51.5 percent), Hong Kong (17.2 percent), Mainland China (11.7 percent) or Europe (9 percent). An interesting trend reported by the study, especially if compared with the past year’s result, is the increasing number of companies defining the “primary focus” of their business activities in China as “providing goods or services to the Chinese market” (up 75.1 percent this year from 46 percent in 2006) against “manufacturing primarily for export” (24.9 percent).

Other interesting insights emerging from the study include:

  • Labor market trends; over 80 percent of the companies that answered the questionnaire report to have “taken advantage of the current labor market by hiring new employees,” with AmCham estimating approximately 488,000 new hirings in 2010
  • Investment budgets for 2011; medium-to-large foreign enterprises appear to have decreased their investments about 4 percent compared to 2010 while large and small firms have increased them by nearly 5 percent

The white paper covers 30 years of China’s growth, its innovations, and current situation as well as China’s relation with the United States. It also urges the Chinese authorities to simplify the regulatory framework and make it easier for foreign companies to do business in China.

Both the special report and the white paper are available for download on the chamber’s web site.

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