Away for a while

Pressures of work have made this BLOG intermittent over the past few weeks. Sorry about that.

Pressure of holiday will keep me off it over the next week. I'm afraid I'm not one of those who will be blogging about how to blog while I'm on holiday. I will, though, tell you where I'm going...Krabi in Thailand. Can't wait...I look forward to relaxing and encouraging my sons to climb these cliffs, dive in the Andaman Sea and do all those good things.

If you're interested in more news about Krabi, there's a nice, simple web site here.

Happy New Year to you all and best wishes for a wonderful 2006...

Indian Bureaucrats 1, Google 0

For 10 years now, the developers of the Internet have been ducking and weaving the sales tax issue. It has been creeping in, but large tracts of the Internet have remained free of the sticky and unwelcome fingers of politicians and bureaucrats. It's only a matter of time before they close in and India may be just prove to be the front line.

According to ContentSutra.com, Google India has just discovered the unquenched enthusiasm of the country's bureaucrats for collecting early and often, particularly if you look like a fat-pocketed foreigner. The sinister-sounding Authority for Advance Rulings has apparently decided Google "will have to pay service tax for selling advertisement space on its search site to Indian entities" the post says.

Like most such rulings, the potential for confusion is obvious. I quite agree with the writer, S. Karat who says "I would say it's too early to tax a fledgling advertising business. The business models are yet to be clear here, while the tax department seems to be in a hurry to tax ads on search engines. Does that include adsense and adwords too? I doubt if the tax department would be clear on that".

What a difference two years makes

I will fall back on the time-honoured short-cut of newspaper editors in the holiday season: when news is short and your writers are on holiday, print more pictures. I will refrain from calling this a year-end round-up, that would be too dull.

Just before Christmas, the 70,000 sq. metre (750,000 sq. ft for those of you in N. America who can't give up your feet and inches habit) Phase 1 of Hong Kong's new exhibition centre, AsiaWorld-Expo opened. I was involved with the initial planning phase and visited the bare site at Hong Kong International Airport in the middle of 2003. So, I thought a little before and after might be of interest:







Look out for the celebratory CEO in one of my opening ceremony pics. A prize of my mother's Christmas pudding recipe to anybody who spots him. CLUE: It's not the man with his mouth open in the picture which features my colleague Kim Cheng.

eBay China begins to wilt

Back in October, we talked about Alibaba.com turning up the heat on Ebay in China with its taobao.com site. Now, we see from the ChinaStockBlog that the heat is beginning to have an effect. EBay is dropping charges for opening 'stores' within its China system. As taobao.com has promised free service through 2008, that may not be the last charge that Ebay has to drop in China to attract small business users. Once they're both free - what do you bet? 6 months - then taobao's traffic-building approach will begin to look the smarter of the two.

Is Meg Whitman going to be spending her Christmas holidays in China too?

Update: More on this at Red Herring which quotes Jack Ma as saying this "too little, too late. The game is already over.”

Kenfair to Bahrain

In one of the more interesting moves by a Hong Kong-based exhibitions company of late, Kenfair has announced that it has signed an MOU with the Bahrain Convention & Exhibition Bureau ("BCEB") agreeing to launch a Middle East version of its "Asia Expo" series there in 2006.

Kenfair's chairman, Herbert Ip, who signed the MOU is reported as saying "The MOU we signed not only mark the beginning of collaboration between Kenfair International and the BCEB, but also serves as testament to Kenfair's earnest efforts to grow its business and international reach".

Kenfair still derives a high proportion of its revenues and profits from its October Gifts and Housewares exhibition in Hong Kong, the "Mega Fair". It has made a number of efforts to diversify with launches of its Asia Expo into other markets including London, Las Vegas and Warsaw, Poland. This effort is picking up pace as the opening (tomorrow) of AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong sees new competition in the form of Global Sources' China Sourcing Fairs in the key spring and autumn time slots.

Las Vegas wedding in Singapore

As the bidding process for Singapore's new (don't call them casinos) Integrated Resorts heats up, Las Vegas Sands has become the latest company to tie the knot with a new Singaporean partner. City Developments is a property developer who will presumably add some local clout to the Sands Group's bid as they vie to add a second string to their Asian bow.

We report on this because, like their Venetian Macau project, the Bayfront Marina IR in Singapore (as opposed to the other one on Sentosa Island) will include a convention and exhibition centre....right next door to the existing Suntec City development. We most recently reported on the Venetian's success in building up its exhibitions calendar two years before it opens its doors. We also talked back in June about how this development is making the industry in Hong Kong nervous.

...and in India too

No sooner have we reported on Reed's increased seriousness in China than we hear more news from India too. Exchange4media reports that Reed Business Information from the US has formed a new joint venture with Infomedia India Ltd. The company's press release says that the JV will be 51:49 in Reed's favour and will license over 100 titles.

Infomedia was previously a division of the Tata empire of companies. It was spun off in a management buyout, backed by investment bank ICICI and is now listed in Mumbai. Its other titles include Infomedia Yellow Pages and special interest magazines like Better Photography, OVERDRIVE, AV MAX, Search, IC CHIP and Auto Monitor.

This is Reed's second foray into India this year. Back in September, we reported that JCK was launching a New Delhi edition together with InterAds.

Reed signals seriousness on China

The announcement that Reed Elsevier has appointed Henry Kissinger's key China adviser as the chairman of its China business sends a clear signal of just how seriously the company is looking at the Middle Kingdom. The position is a new one and Shan Mei can be expected to be using the political connections built up over 20 years working for Kissinger to try to ease Reed's way through the minefields of China's regulatory environment.

Mei will be based in Beijing and report to Reed Elsevier's Chief Strategy Officer, Nick Baker.

Business Week gives up on Asian edition

The news that Business Week is shuttering its separate Asian (and European) editions will come as no surprise to many. We have written here and in other publications about the challenges of English language regional print media. With Asiaweek and the Far Eastern Economic Review gone as news publications, there are very few left.

Local language editions in the bigger markets seem to work and the reports say that the Chinese and Indonesian editions of Business Week will survive. Presumably McGraw Hill will want to push forward with its plans for an Indian edition as well.

One interesting detail not mentioned in the IHT story linked above has been picked up by Crain's B2B when it says that the print editions will be replaced "with special European and Asian online editions". This confirms a trend that we have been spotting for a while. While digital and online editions of print titles have been slow starters in domestic markets, particularly in the US, they appear to be an effective way of reaching small but influential international readerships.

Jostling for position in India

We reported back in October about Westbridge doing a pre-IPO funding exercise with Times Internet, the online arm of what is arguably India's most powerful newspaper group, Bennett Coleman. There have been some good insights in the past few days from the always-interesting ContentSutra.com about the jockeying for position between western VCs for these types of deals.

It seems that Sequoia Capital got squeezed out. The bubbly nature of the Internet market in Asia's key developing centres, China and India, is clearly indicated by this phrase:

The truth is TIL changed its plans to raise funds now, as it thought it could get better valuations at a later stage.

There is an update on the story today reporting an official announcement from Westbridge on its part in the deal.

All change at CIEC

In a surprise move, it has been announced that the President of Beijing's largest exhibition centre...and one of the rising stars of the Chinese exhibitions industy....Liang Wen, will be leaving CIEC in February to become the head of CCPIT's Brussels office. Liang's position as President of CIEC will be taken by former CCPIT Secretary-General Dong Songgen.

Yahoo wins Asian Firefox search slot

John Battelle may have found quite some fame with his Google book "The Search" but he is still blogging actively on a variety of interesting topics surrounding search. We just noticed an interesting snippet from the end of last week in which he notes the Yahoo! has displaced Google as the default search engine in new, Asian versions of the Firefox browser.

We had already noted how Alibaba.com's Jack Ma, newly in charge of Yahoo's China business, has described the coming battle as focused on search. This Firefox decision to go with Yahoo! is a small skirmish in the build up to the big fight but we shall follow it all with interest.

P.S. I switch back and forth between Safari on the Mac and Firefox. On my PC, Firefox is now the default browser, a move which has reduced Spyware infections by a factor of around 20.

Another Cybermedia deal

News from India that Cybermedia has now done a deal with Expomedia, the UK/Moscow-based exhibitions company. The release says that the 10-year joint venture agreement will see the two companies "collaborating on the organisation of new International events in the ICT and Life Sciences arena". The first events to be launched will be ‘The Internet Communications Technology Show’ and the ‘Life Sciences Event’ which will be held at the Expomedia Group's newly-opened EXPO XXI Centre in New Delhi.

It's been a busy year for Cybermedia which listed on the Mumbai stock market earlier this year and entered into a JV with CMP Media on outsourcing titles. CEO Pradeep Gupta even managed to find time to involve himself in the movie business.

On the road

Apologies for lack of posts. The good news is, business is good. Clients are keeping me in Bangkok - great city - and Shanghai - very crowded these days - 1 hour waits at Immigration are increasingly the norm. Lots to talk about but not enough time to do so.

Hope to be back to more regular posting within the next week or so.

Strong revenue growth

China Stock Blog tracks 17 US-listed Mainland companies, many of which are media-related. It has just summarised their Q3 revenue growth. They show an impressive 54.4% average growth, led by Baidu, up 172.9%. The only company showing negative growth is Sina, one of the first wave of portal listings.

I had been getting a little disappointed with this blog's verbatim re-posting of all the analyst conference calls. Far more there than I'm interested to read and easily linked. I much prefer to see punchier pieces, pulling together the poster's own views. The re-posting of transcripts seems to me the blogging equivalent of that standard fallback of the lazy journalist, the verbatim interview....you know the thing, the Q: I asked this. A: He said......... . That doesn't require a journalist or a brain - just a tape recorder and a transcriber. Dull Dull Dull.

Classified India

Good to see two of BSG's business partners, Peter Zollman of Classified Intelligence and Santosh Goenka of BSG India and Diagonal Globalcom working together to drum up new business in the sub-continent. Exchange4media reports that Zollman thinks that "Though classified advertising in India is more visible in the print media, ...the transition from print to online was going to be steady. He cited the example of countries like Norway, Sweden and Finland where most of the classified advertising was now online".

He said, "The transition in India is just getting started and as the Internet penetration grows and as younger audiences migrate from the traditional newspapers to online and to mobile devices, the transition will get faster and more important. There is plenty of opportunity."

They still don't get it

It is ironic that a Republican administration in Washington DC continues to take so many steps which are damaging to business. The exhibitions and business events industry in the US has been seriously hurt by the challenges which visitors from Asia now face in obtaining a US visa. Why bother with a US show when you can easily get to Germany or one of the world's other major trade fair centres? Heck, you're almost made to feel welcome there.

The meetings industry has, according to the Meeting Industry Soapbox blog, started to push back. The specific gripe covered in this post relates to Mexico and Canada but it highlights an issue which is continued problem for visitors to the US from Asia. Even as Embassy officials on the ground attempt to streamline the cumbersome processes, the long-term damage to the US' reputation as a business-friendly destination for Asians will keep European and other Asian event organisers happy for a very long time.

New Feed

The old RSS feed on this site seems to have stopped working yesterday. I'm too much of a technical duffer to be quite sure why but have set up another one anyway. If you're reader was showing an error (and you're quite possibly not here if it was), try the new feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/wlob.

Thanks!

Chinese internet dissected

Hugo Martin points to an excellent research report (144 pages, downloadable free of charge) on the Chinese Internet. I have only just started dipping in to it, but can see plenty of interesting nuggets.

Hugo points out the following:

- Chinese Internet user spends nearly three hours a day online
- 75 percent have never made an Internet purchase
- 42 percent never use a search engine.
- 85 percent spend their time viewing mainland Chinese-language content only
- 3 percent (sayed, that they) viewed overseas foreign language content

It's not a new insight but the report's conclusion that "Internet development in China is still at a preliminary stage" is one which still gives great food for thought as user numbers accelerate past 103 million.

Global Insight buying into China

US information provider Global Insight is buying a "substantial portion" of the China Economic Information Network (CEInet) according to the China Daily. Global Insight's chairman and chief executive Joseph E. Kasputys is quoted by the newspaper as saying "Yes we have agreed in principle to co-operate with CEInet". It adds that the deal is awaiting government approval.

CEInet was established in 1996 by the State Information Centre and provides economic information on China. Global Insight, a private company, was formed through the merger of DRI and WEFA.

Back in September, Global Insight had announced an expansion of the presence of its automotive group in China. At the time, Kasputys said "The Asian region has become an increasingly important part of our overall business, and the establishment of local Automotive Group operations in Japan and China is therefore a logical next step in our strategy to further exploit the significant growth potential offered by these and other Asian markets."

No free lunch

Proving the old adage about free lunches, we made a few remarks at a lunch on Monday organised by the China Daily's CEO Rountable. The energetic Editor-in-Chief of the Roundtable, Alexander Wan, pulled together an interesting cross-section of senior hotel and tourism industry people at the Grand Hyatt in Shanghai. The exchanges were picked up by this piece in the newspaper.

Another CMP move in Japan

It may not be Asia's most exciting business, but CMP Asia continues to clock up steady progress and remains one of the strongest B2B players in the region. News today of another acquisition in Japan where it has acquired the Japan Jewelry Fair for $2.7 million - pretty much the exact average cost of trade fair acquisitions in Asia over the past five years according to our calculations (we make the average $2.8 million per business acquired). This move, along with the news that its September fair in Hong Kong will expand to cover the new AsiaWorld-Expo venue as well as the existing Hong Kong Exhibition & Convention Centre, is clearly designed to consolidate CMP's position as dominant player in Asia in this industry....and to give Reed Exhibitions something to think about as they have to defend their home turf in Japan where International Jewellery Tokyo is one of their key products.

Only 8% of exhibitions in Japan are organised by commercial companies. Most are still in the hands of associations as was the JJF, owned until this deal by the Japan Jewellery Association.

China Finance under fire

One of the worst performing China business information stocks we have been tracking is ChinaFinance.com. (Nasdaq: JRJC), down 41.7% since January. Some interesting discussion about the reasons for this have been knocking about on the China Stock Blog. The dismal performance of China's stock markets is given as one of the key reasons. Probably right. Any self-respecting company would run a mile rather than list in Shanghai or, even worse, Shenzhen. No surprise that the big boys are all piling into Hong Kong (less enthusiastic for New York post Sarbanes-Oxley). That takes them out of the reach of ChinaFinance into the hands of more major players like PR Newswire and Xinhua Finance.

What in heavens, though, is a company with $1.85 million quarterly revenues and a very dodgy looking business plan doing listed on Nasdaq in the first place? A reader on the China Stock Blog today poses the same question in a comment. He captures the key point very succintly:

Simply put, the company should never have gone public. Management does not have a viable business plan yet and their spending is unsustainable.

Search them

"Yahoo! China's new direction can be summed up in one key word - 'search'". That's AFX News on Jack Ma's 'relaunch' of Yahoo! China as quoted in Forbes. The Alibaba.com boss is obviously setting his sights on market leader Baidu.com which, according to the article, has a 37% market share against Yahoo! China's 32%. Google lags in China with just 19%.

Ma dismisses the Google threat in China pretty much out of hand. He is quoted as saying "Today Baidu is probably the only (search) player in China...Google's servers are still in the States, Google does not have a team in China yet. I think we moved fast enough."

Without giving any numbers, he is reported to have said that Alibaba's B2B actvities were "profitable enough to cover the expenses for its customer-to-customer (C2C) website, Taobao.com, and its online payment service, AliPay".

Ziff re-marries in China

We are less interested in Ziff's announcement that they will have launched PC Magazine in China than in their choice of partner. The choice of SEEC Media straddles the ease of a Hong Kong-based launch (SEEC is technically a Hong Kong company) with the influence of a good Beijing partner (SEEC Media is a kissing cousin of the publisher of Caijing magazine, the Stock Exchange Executive Council (and thus SEEC), China's top financial services regulator. We have commented on this before.

The results are now in and the first edition of the new monthly PC Magazine China has weighed in at 160, one of the first serious competitors to IDG's 23 year dominance of the sector. Previous efforts by the company to launch in China have revolved around financial partners trying to leverage a set of contacts similar to those used by IDG itself.

In the company's press release yesterday, Robert F. Callahan, Chairman and CEO, Ziff Davis Media was quoted as saying “Ziff Davis searched over a year for the ideal partner to launch the Chinese edition of PC Magazine; a partner with a deep understanding of the business of publishing magazines and operating other media in China...We’ve found that partner in the SEEC Media Group, a Hong Kong listed public company (HK: 205) that has a well-established reputation as a leading source of news and financial information in the greater China region. ”

Watch out for the lawyers

The FT's diary section today reports (subscription required) IP lawyers at a chemicals trade show in Scotland hitting 37 Chinese companies with injunctions over patent infringement. The report says:

Companies in the UK are using a novel approach to find knock-offs of their products: going to trade fairs, where the offending goods are often displayed out in the open.


Actually, not so novel. As companies who have participated in the big sourcing fairs in Hong Kong and Guangzhou can attest, knock-offs have been a fact of life for years and many companies have used IP lawyers, sometimes targeting the fair organisers as well as the exhibitors. The Canton Fair people have told us that they employ almost 100 people in the IP department. It seems like a lot although, when you look at the types of companies exhibiting and the number of them - 12 - 15,000 - keeping them all in line is certainly a big job.

A front page report on the same issue (open to non-subscribers), identifies BASF as one of the three main complainants here.

Back to the future

Here's one for you techy types. Look at the People's Daily's RSS feeds in your Reader software. All carry tomorrow's date:

Nov 09, 2005 - Show original item

Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan on Monday said China is willing to strengthen its cooperation with other countries and international organizations in the utilization of renewable energy.

Click on the link to the original story and you come back from the future to today in the website itself. This has been going on for some time. What should we make of it?

B2B Asia online top 10

We have done our calculations for October and come up with the following new top 10 B2B internet businesses in Asia by estimated user numbers. Four of the next five sites (tdctrade.com, 51fashion.com.cn, manufacturers.com.tw, fumin.com, and techtarget.com.cn) are moving up strongly so we may see some changes to this next month.

Contact me directly if you want to see the full list of 49 we're tracking.

China BLOG search engine

We reported back in June about rather ambitious financial plans for BlogChina. Now we learn from the excellent Marbridge Weekly newsletter (reporting CCID) that the company recently released its own, Chinese language blog search engine, booso.com. The developers claim a number of advantages from special features including, they say "searching through blog archives. It [also] makes use of "blogcasting" to make possible near-real time updating of its index, making it a valuable complement to traditional search engines".

Chinese blogging is certainly on people's minds this week. Rebecca MacKinnnon has been reporting from Shanghai on what she thinks is the first ever blogger conference there. A couple of the interesting points from the most recent post which caught my eye:

• There is interest in doing more to communicate with the outside world. Language is a barrier, but people are open to distributed volunteer translation networks and other means of getting Chinese voices heard outside of the Chinese language blogosphere.
• Censorship is an issue. But people are determined to maximize what they can do within the realities of the system, and to push the boundaries as much as possible.

Activity down under

Our Asia brief covers Australia and, although we don't very often find our attention pointing in that direction - more's the pity - two stories related to Fairfax did catch our eye.

In the first, blogger Mark Jones talks about the all-to-rare news of an IT-related publication increasing its editorial team. Fairfax's MIS is hiring. This follows a restructuring earlier this year when the magazine's editorial staff was merged with that of the Fairfax flagship business title, Australian Financial Review.

Then, over at Bloomberg, we noticed another Fairfax story. Chief Executive David Kirk is quoted as saying that the company "may add travel and financial services to its Internet sites to boost sales as print advertising growth slows". The report adds:

"As traditional revenue from newspapers slows and circulation declines, it's all about expanding your revenue streams to provide growth,'' said Jason Teh, who manages the equivalent of about $4.1 billion in Australian stocks at Investors Mutual Ltd. in Sydney. "You have to have a serious presence on the Internet.''

Rupert Murdoch has budgeted $2 billion to acquire Internet assets. In Australia, he has taken control of realestate.com after a bid valuing the company at A$269 million ($199 million). Publishing & Broadcasting, controlled by Kerry Packer, last month acquired a 41 percent stake in carsales.com.au.

Past the 100 million mark

Following our post yesterday on estimates of Asia's web population, today's Chinese press includes reports noting that the number of Chinese Internet users already exceeded 103 million in June this year.

According to Mao Qian, head of Optical Telecommunications Committee of China Telecommunications Society, 53 million of these users have broadband connections.

Mofcom stakes its claim

The People's Daily today reports on a press conference by China's vice minister of commerce Jiang Zengwei in which he is quoted as saying that the Chinese exhibition industry is growing at 20% a year. That matches BSG's own estimates which is gratifying.

He made his comments in a press conference promoting the 2nd China Expo Economy Forum scheduled for the end of November in Beijing. What catches our eye about this is Mofcom's increasingly direct involvement in the exhibitions industry in China. It used to be the sole preserve of the CCPIT which plays the mixed role of Chamber of Commerce, national trade promotion organisation, exhibition organiser, venue owner and, in some cases, issuer of licenses to hold trade fairs. Oh, and yes, they organise over-seas exhibitions for Chinese companies too. CCPIT's own exhibition industry forum, CEFCO, will be held in Guangzhou next January.

Mofcom's star is on the rise with its high profile Minister, Bo Xilai, a great success as Mayor of Dalian and Governor of Liaoning Province and son of one of the Communist "immortals" Bo Yibo.

Asian league tables

We always enjoy a browse through the Computer Industry Almanac's annual world rankings of 224 countries in terms of Internet users, penetration and ISPs. 26 of those countries are in Asia.

No surpise that China ranks #1 in terms of users (99.8 million this report says). Bhutan is bottom of the list with none. The top 10 looks like this:

Internet Users (mn)

1 China 99.80

2 Japan 78.05

3 India 36.97

4 South Korea 31.67

5 Australia 13.01

6 Indonesia 12.86

7 Malaysia 10.04

8 Taiwan 9.52

9 Thailand 7.57

10 Philippines 5.96

When measured by penetration, of course, the picture changes dramatically with Hong Kong taking the top spot and China sinking to 12th:

Penetration

1 Hong Kong 66.4%

2 South Korea 65.4%

3 Australia 64.8%

4 Singapore 62.1%

5 Japan 61.3%

6 New Zealand 57.9%

7 Malaysia 41.8%

8 Taiwan 41.6%

9 Macau 22.5%

10 Thailand 11.6%

In terms of ISPs, Australia rules the roost with 571, a massive 8 times larger than nearest rival, Japan which has 73. India looks strong in third place with 43 while China has to make do with just 3 ISPs to serve all those users.

Reed serious about 'new' air show

In a sign that its vow to relaunch Asian Aerospace in another country is serious, following the breakdown of negotiations with the Singapore government, Reed Exhibitions has appointed an industry veteran to its team. News reports today say that Clive Richardson, currently CEO of the Dubai Air Show, will become Senior Vice President Reed's aerospace and defence business for Asia/Pacific.

Reed's Asia/Pacific President Paul Beh is quoted as saying:

"Clive's coming on board now could not have been more timely given the challenging opportunities ahead, including Asian Aerospace 2008 at its new home".

Comrade Nanny dampens e-commerce potential

We have been writing for some while about the pieces coming together to make e-commerce more viable in China and about how this could be a key trend for business media companies (most recently here). Our last post before heading off behind the Great Firewall (Shanghai this time - same mediocre access to the real Internet as everywhere else in China) was about the Alibaba/Taobao vs. eBay battle.

Now we hear that the powers that be have lost their nerve and China's newspapers all carry the headline "Rules on e-payment in single deal tightened". The Shanghai Daily article kicks off:

INDIVIDUAL users are not allowed to buy products valued at more than 1,000 yuan (US$123.45) through electronic payment in a single deal to hedge against the risk of online fraud, the People's Bank of China said on its Website.

It goes on to suggest that this will not really cramp e-commerce as there are other ways to pay. Indeed there are. Men on bicycles with renminbi notes clamped in cleft sticks will do the job. But that's not really the point is it.

The maximum limit for commercial users is Rmb50,000 (US$6,200) which I dare say will come as a great relief to the paper clip purchasers.

Alibaba.com turns up the heat on eBay

The sneering and snorting about "free stuff" from its B2B rivals has been somewhat muted in recent months as the scale of Alibaba.com's conquest of the China online sourcing market becomes clear....underlined by its massive deal with Yahoo.

Given the extent to which eBay has become a centre for small business activity, it seems reasonable to turn our attention to what Jack Ma and Co. are doing with their auction site, Taobao.com. Having closed the Yahoo deal this week, they immediately announced an injection of Rmb1 billion (US$125 million) into Taobao and, more importantly, confirmed that it will remain free for a least three more years.

They are already making strong headway: Alexa.com ranks Taobao.com at #28 and its measures suggest an audience almost 12 million users. eBay.com.cn ranks #52 and appears to generate an audience of around 7.5 million. The battle isn't over but it is increasingly well funded.

Cross-Cultural Challenges

An interesting post today from Matt McAlister, VP and General Manager, Online at IDG's InfoWorld regarding the different expectations of users in Asia and the US for web design. As Matt says:

In the translation they found some key differences in what motivates someone to participate online. The problem is not just about translating terminology in the user interface but also about interpreting interaction design models.

We are working with a number of clients who are moving product from the US and Europe to Asia. These cultural issues throw up all sorts of challenges which go well beyond the technicalities of translation or different character sets. Matt's post is particularly interesting as it deals with taking an Asian model to the US; most people's experience points in the other direction at this stage.

Cybermedia shows strong growth

I have liked what I see at Pradeep Gupta's Cybermedia for some time. The newly-listed IT publisher is one of the most credible and professional B2B media outfits in India. It has just reported strong Q2 performance with half year revenues up 38% at Rs238 million (US$5.3 million). Net profit was up even more strongly at Rs25 million (US$558,000), up 61%.

These B2B businesses in India are still small by international standards but, at these rates of growth, that won't be the case for long.

Thanks to Cybermedia as well for presenting its figures in (for we westerners at least) simple "millions". The mental gymnastics required to convert lakhs and crores into our more conventional measures is a challenge which is obviously now reserved for the local journalists producing articles like this who have to convert it back the other way!

Update: more Cybermedia news regarding a proposed internal restructuring in this post at ContentSutra.

Dilbert Blogs

Best news of the week (and quite irrelevant to the subject of this blog) by far is that Scott Adams, the irreverent genius behind Dilbert has started a blog. Now we can fritter away time and lift our spirits on both his cartoons and his postings.

Venetian Macau previews show calendar

In an early press release, the Venetian Macau has announced a calendar of over 20 exhibitions in industries as diverse as police and security, jewelry, hospitality, leather goods, real estate, automotive parts and accessories, high-end consumer goods, luxury boats, and investment forums. Committed organisers include China International Exhibition Center Group Corporation from Beijing; Koelnmesse and Messe Frankfurt from Germany; VNU Expositions Asia from the Netherlands; Australasian Gaming Machine Manufacturers Association from Australia; Reed Exhibitions Worldwide; CMP Asia headquartered in Hong Kong; and China Promotion, Coastal
International Exhibition and Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd. from Hong Kong.

This comes at the end of an intense period of personal lobbying of organisers by the Venetian's main shareholder, Comdex founder Sheldon Adelson. The new 80,000 sq. metre exhibition centre at the Venetian Macau is due to open in late 2007.

McGraw on China and India

Another US media mogul has been pontificating on opportunities in China and India. Last week, we reported on Time Warner's Richard Parson's comments on the matter in Hong Kong. This week, we find The China Stock Blog giving some air time to McGraw Hill CEO Terry McGraw's comments on the varying opportunities in the two markets.

"India is a very exciting market because of the political changes that have taken place about 12 months ago" he tells us. While, on China, he suggests"...in the five-year time frame I think we’re going to see in China continued stunning growth…..".

Baidu & China bank collaborate on payment

We're back from Moscow and catching up on the news. The Marbridge Weekly newsletter picks up on an interesting deal between stock market darling (at least for those who sold early enough) baidu.com and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China regarding on-line payment solutions.

Says the e-newsletter:

Under the agreement, Baidu's customers can log on to ICBC's online payment platform to pay for Baidu services, such as movie downloads and web-based message sending

It continues:

Alibaba PR director Wang Shuai noted that with the establishment of the online payment platform, its possible Baidu could move to more fully enter the e-commerce market. In fact Baidu is only one step away from becoming a real e-commerce provider, lacking only operation of a dedicated shopping website. In response Baidu spokesman Liang Dong claimed Baidu has no plan for the development of B2B or C2C services, and will continue to focus on Chinese online search services.

Whatever the trust about Baidu's, the issue of online payment solutions will be at the heart of the development of e-commerce in both the B2B and B2C arena in China. We have written about this several times, most recently in relation to Global Payments.

Strakosch on Asia

The folk at Jordman Edmiston, the media investment bank, have been having a busy year with all the B2B M&A in the US. Their news updates are often quite interesting and we were interested to see this interview with Greg Strakosch. TechTarget has featured in a lot of my discussions with clients this year and the company's CEO has some interesting insights into the position Asia will play in their future.

A couple of highlights here:

The dynamics in Asia are actually more similar to the U.S. than they are different. In regards to audiences conducting research online, this is true across the global Internet. Advertisers in Asia are interested in generating strong ROIs on their ad spend, so content providers are under the same pressures in all countries. Since these two major trends exist both in Asia and the U.S., the same types of market opportunities are also available in both places.

and:

Our expansion into Asia is a new effort for us, so the partnerships that we have forged there are less than a year old. We have just partnered with Softbank in Japan, and this effort will launch later this year. So, the financial impact to TechTarget won't be very meaningful in 2005. However, five years from now, we believe the impact of these efforts is going to be substantial, since such a great proportion of the IT market is outside the U.S.

Reed loses Singapore air show

Big news in the Asian exhibitions industry with a Reuters report that Reed has failed to renew its contract with the Singapore government to manage Asian Aerospace, the largest air show in Asia.

The report says:

Singapore will run an airshow on its own from 2008 onwards after it failed to reach a deal with the existing organisers.

It goes on to say:

The last show on the current site near the city-state's Changi airport -- run by Reed Exhibitions and Singapore defence and aircraft maintenance firm Singapore Technologies Engineering -- will take place in February next year.

ChannelNewsAsia, Singapore's own cable news TV station, says that the new fair will be called the Changi International Airshow. It adds that Reed is apparently looking to keep the Asian Aerospace name alive and find a new venue for the show. Langkawi and somewhere in Thailand would presumably be high on their list.

This is always a risk with any management contract but leaves Reed's south-east Asian portfolio looking awfully thin outside Thailand.

More insights also here including a statement from Reed Exhibitions chairman Mike Rushbridge.

Parsons tips his hat to India

Speaking in Hong Kong today at an American Chamber of Commerce lunch, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons indicated, as we have suggested in several recent articles, that India is looking more attractive than China to media companies right now. Reuters quotes him saying:

"India, I think, offers more current potential for us as it has a stronger rule-of-law culture," he said.

The obstacles in India are largely technical due to a lack of infrastructure, but there are fewer regulatory and cultural hurdles to overcome than in China, he said.

"I think gradually, gradually, they'll open up in their way," he said, referring to the Chinese market.

Speaking for myself, I don't think I'll be holding my breath waiting for that opening.

Reed into drugs

Just arrived in Bangkok (now the Sukhothai is a really nice hotel) to discover that, while in the air, Paul Conley has shown once again his close interest in international devlopments, particularly Asia. He points to a Reed Business announcement of a new magazine, Pharma Asia. This will be a nice complement to the big trade fairs deal that RBI's sister company, Reed Exhibitions, did in China a couple of months back when it acquired the big, State-owned medical fairs company, Sinopharm. Reed has not always been the best at wringing synergies out of its publishing and trade fair portfolios but the strong interest in healthcare is clear for all to see.

They're not the only ones. CMP big deal to acquire MediMedia last year (now CMP Medica) was worth around $345 million. One-third of the value of that was in Asia.

More on Alibaba.com

We don't want to make this into a single-company blog. However, Alibaba.com and its founder Jack Ma continue to keep themselves far enough in front of the rest of the pack that they generate the most intersting news. Two interesting pieces today in the usually dull Shanghai Daily.

In the first, we see a report noting that the value of trades on Alibaba's eBay challenger site, taobao.com have increased 41% year on year in the 3rd quarter. The company is reporting trades of Rmb2.34 billion (US$289 million) and 60% market share. Of course, it still doesn't charge for taobao activity so that 60% share generates Rmb0 for Alibaba.com just now (except in investor dollars, of course).

Elsewhere, Rupert Hoogewerf's annual China rich list has just been published, for the seventh time. It includes 7 US$ billionaires among the 400 Chinese 'super rich' listed. The Shanghai Daily report notes that:

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba.com, made it to the top 100 for the first time, landing in 36th, thanks to a US$1 billion investment from Yahoo! China. Ma was also ranked the second most powerful business owner in another list released by Hoogewerf on Monday.

ABM Lite

I am starting a couple of weeks of intensive travel, taking in Taipei, Bangkok and Moscow between today and 22nd. There will be lot's of interesting things to see and report on but not so much time to blog. But bear with me, I will be around.

Rex Hammock of rexblog always includes a little picture of a Southwest Airways 737 when he's travelling. So, I'll keep up the tradition and include a plane from my favourite airline, Hong Kong's own Cathay Pacific.

Kristie and Jack

One of the unexpected benefits of a heavy business travel schedule in Asia is that you can wake up to CNN's morning news show which is co-hosted by the talented Kristie Lu Stout. She has just posted an interesting first blog from China which includes impressions of an interview with Alibaba.com's Jack Ma.

Highlights include:

He's been deemed China's new Internet King. But Jack is staying clear of the crown. "I don't consider myself a king, but a teacher," said Jack. "I am China's Chief Education Officer for the Internet." Since the Yahoo deal, Jack concedes that his life has indeed changed. He jokes that he's getting busier, getting thinner. And that a lot of strangers on the street give him a pat on the back for his dot-com coup.

The thought of Jack getting thinner is a bit of worry for anybody who has ever met him.

It seems that Kristie, a veteran of Wired magazine and Reuters in the dotcom heyday, is not a stranger to weblogs. The page includes a link to a five day blog posted earlier this year from Silicon Valley.

Indiatimes IPO plans

Exchange4media is reporting that Indiatimes.com, the Internet arm of India's largest newspaper publishers, Bennett, Coleman & Co., is considering an IPO. The company has already unloaded 5.8% of its stake in the online business to WestBridge Capital according to the report which is based on an interview with Indiatimes CEO Mahendra Swarup.

Working hard to make a name

We are always interested to watch small, new companies pulling themselves out into the limelight. The pace of growth in China offers all manner of opportunities for the entrepreneurially-minded. Alexander Glos, the CEO of I2i Media, appears to combine a good sense for those opportunities with a keen eye for publicity.

The company's new web site includes a BBC interview at CEBIT Asia in Shanghai with the CEO on its home page. As a quick look at the Press Center section shows, there has been a steady stream of announcements from I2i which describes itself as a company which "develops, produces, markets and sells b2b and b2c media opportunities throughout China, North America and Europe".

Good luck to them.

UFI Asia Seminar announced

UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, has announced its first Asia Seminar, to be held in Hong Kong 21 - 22 February. More information on this at BSG's Corporate BLOG or directly from UFI.

German publishers in India

Back in June, we noted that the German publishers association VDZ was planning to visit India. Now, we read from ContentSutra.com that they are there. Currently in Delhi, they have reportedly met:

• India Today
• Outlook
• CyberMedia
• McMillan Publishing
• Delhi Press
• Business World

Today they move on to Mumbai to meet:

• Indian Express Business Publication Division
• NextGen Publishing
• Infomedia India
• Indian Book Distributer (IBD)

I imagine they will find themselves enthralled by the opportunity and overwhelmed by the challenges.

Tanka poetry and B2B media

A bit of a stretch this one, but I was pleased to see Paul Conley back in action with an intriguing post and it has an Asian connection. When he said "Time for a change, time for a break" a couple of weeks back, I was worried that his postings would dry up.

Paul's post notes:

In a lovely and unexpected development, young people in Japan have taken to sending Tanka text messages via cellphone. The Tanka craze is the latest example of consumers creating new forms of media from new types of technology. I'm always delighted by such things..and often amazed by the speed at which they arrive.

It sometimes takes me a moment or two to decipher the messages that my teenage kids and my younger staff send me, but Paul is right: the current generation is communicating more in writing than for some while. It may not be traditional. It is sometimes odd. But it beats grunting.

Indian Express IPO

Exchange4Media reports that the Indian Express group's IPO plans continue to move forward. The group, which includes newspapers and business publishing activities "was close to finalising a merchant banker and aimed at coming out with the initial public offering by the end of the financial year" according to the news site, quoting Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, Indian Express.

Timing of the IPO is still somewhat uncertain although the company says it will be before the end of this financial year. The report ends with a note that the group "is coming out with a host of new general and special magazines by the year-end and holding a summit as part of its ‘India Empowered’ campaign in the third week of October".

EC21 upgrade

Meanwhile, changes over at EC21, the Korean-based Asian sourcing site which sits at #6 in our latest ranking of Asia's top B2B web sites. The site which, along with Global Sources, is the only non-Chinese site in the top 10, has added a variety of new features in a major redesign which became active today.

At the end of September, EC21.com was ranked #929 in the Alexa.com rankings and, by our estimates, generates an audience of around 447,000 regular users. That places it just behind Global Sources (626,000) and ahead of zdnet.com.cn (407,000).

Global Sources focus on transactions

An interesting press release from Global Sources which suggests that they are stepping up their focus on integrating transactions into their sourcing services. This has been on the agenda for everybody in the business since the heady days of 1998 but has taken a long time to take hold in the Asian exports sector.

The company is now talking of two channels, having earlier announced a link-up with eBay:

The first channel is part of Global Sources' strategic alliance with eBay,
which allows eBay PowerSellers around the world to buy direct from China
suppliers through auctions listed under the eBay user ID GlobalSourcesDirect.
The second is through its online store, which offers fixed-price sales at
http://www.GlobalSourcesDirect.com.

Google also in hot water

The big international players sometimes give the impression that they are competing for 1st prize in the China Internet kowtow contest. In imperial times, visitors to the Emperor had to prostrate themselves in front of the great man and press their foreheads to the floor three times to signify their complete subservience to the ultimate power.

Several reports, including this one from the BBC report on protests about Google's apparent insistence on towing the Zhongnanhai line on Taiwan as a renegade province. A search on Google Maps for the word Taiwan, reveals a map of the island and the phrase "Taiwan, Province on China". Hong Kong's South China Morning Post today reports "The search engine once revised the description after a protest from a pro-independence group, but changed it back just days later, apparently under pressure from the mainland".

As any publisher experienced in China will tell you, the Taiwan issue touches on the rawest of nerves in both the mainland and Taiwan. There are, however, generally-accepted alternatives which (while resented a bit on both sides) are deemed mutually acceptable for most media. "Taiwan", all by itself, is OK for all but the extremist and the sycophants. "The Republic of China" is not OK (in the mainland) while Taiwan Province offends many in Taiwan.

And make sure Taiwan appears on any maps you publish of China: my first visit to Beijing in 1985 was memorable for a two hour lecture from our publishing partners of the day on the one China issue because our cover artist (in a very stylised map of China - also a bad idea) had omitted the island. Much has changed in China over 20 years, but sensitivities on Taiwan have not. That doesn't mean, though, that we need to knuckle under to whatever we think Beijing might want us to do.

Hong Kong correspondents hit out at Yahoo

The members of Hong Kong's reknowned Foreign Correspondents' Club have hit out at Yahoo's involvement with the imprisonment of Chinese journalist Shi Tao with letters sent to founder Jerry Yang and the head of marketing in Hong Kong, Pauline Wong.

The letter to Yang goes as follows:

Mr. Jerry Yang

Co-Founder,
Chief Yahoo and Director

Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, California 94089

United States of America

Dear Mr. Yang.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong, is deeply distressed by Yahoo’s compliance with requests from unknown mainland authorities to hand over information regarding the personal emails of our professional colleague, journalist Shi Tao, and we wish to express our displeasure in the strongest terms.

We note with dissatisfaction Yahoo’s attempted explanation, offered through your good offices, that it “must comply with the laws, regulations and customs” of the nation where it does business. This attempt to seek cover beneath compliance with the rule of law is as unworthy as it is unpersuasive, and in no way addresses the questions of professional ethics and corporate conscience that should arise whenever a request for the provision of personal information is made. Yahoo’s effort at self-justification actually worsens matters; not only is no particular law nor regulation cited, but the suggestion that something as indefinable as “customs” is a legitimate basis for becoming a willing accomplice to authoritarian action makes a mockery of Yahoo’s already feeble effort to appear law-abiding.

Handing over information regarding personal data to a government is not an act that Yahoo, or any responsible Internet Service Provider (ISP), should ever engage in without such material having being sought with a proper judicial warrant issued in the jurisdiction where you are legally domiciled. It is certainly not what Yahoo would do in the United States. Moreover, your firm is registered in Hong Kong, a common law jurisdiction where laws, such as the Personal (Data) Privacy Ordinance, clearly spell out the protections to privacy. If it is Yahoo’s desire to abide by local laws, the FCC suggests that it begin by complying with the laws in force where it is licensed to do business.

If it is Yahoo’s position, however, that the laws, regulations and customs of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are inferior to those of mainland China, then it should state so clearly. That way, people will understand what Yahoo’s view is on One Country-Two Systems relationship, and can select an ISP accordingly. We should add here that a number of our members, representing media organizations from around the world, are already discussing among themselves whether a boycott of Yahoo ought to be organized. Some have already given up their personal Yahoo addresses.

Indeed, if there are political pressures – beyond corporate competition and cupidity – that have driven Yahoo into an action that appears to be a surrender of conscience, then Yahoo – as well as any other ISP’s faced with the same threat – should step forward and make that fact known.

Accordingly, the FCC sincerely extends to executives of Yahoo an invitation to explain any difficulties directly to our members. We would be happy to schedule a speaking engagement. If you are willing to take up this offer, and we hope that you are, please let us know as soon as possible so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

Sincerely,

Ilaria Maria Sala, President

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong

Francis Moriarty, Chairman

FCC Press Freedom Committee

China stock top performers

China Stock Blog produces a weekly listing of the performance of the shares it tracks. Top 10 last week were:

1. CDC Corporation (CHINA) +12.7%
2. Tom Online (TOMO) +10.8%
3. KongZhong (KONG) +9.4%
4. Yanzhou Coal Mining (YZC) +9.1%
5. NetEase (NTES) +8.7%
6. Hurray! (HRAY) +8.4%
7. Focus Media (FMCN) +7.0%
8. Sinopec (SNP) +6.0%
9. eLong (LONG) +5.0%
10. Sina (SINA) +4.7%

Of these, by my count, at least five of the 10 are media-related while eLong is an online travel site.

Of those which fell (5 last week), Baidu was the worst performer, down 19.1%. The rest of the list look more like 'old school' tech stocks although 51Job, an online recruitment site, is obviously feeling the pressure from a number of serious competitors:

Shanda Interactive (SNDA) -0.2%
51Job (JOBS) -0.4%
Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMI) -7.8%
China Techfaith Wireless (CNTF) -9.5%
Baidu (BIDU) -19.1%

They'll never make it in time

Our suspicions that India's B2B print sector will never make it anywhere close to critical mass before being commercially overwhelmed by much more effective online alternatives are fuelled by news that Google is gearing up its Adwords operation in the sub-continent. It looks as though a sales push with real, live sales people may be at the heart of the launch strategy.

ContentSutra posts an Indiatimes article which reports "Search giant Google has started visiting Indian campuses to recruit staff for their fledgling sales office in Hyderabad...Google is ramping up their sales operations in India and is finally looking at the country as a market...".

VNU Business for sale?

Having speculated back in July that VNU's $7 billion acquisition of IMS might give the Asian management team room to breathe as they develop their business media activities, Crain's Bt2B Online and the Wall Street Journal report that the whole VNU Business division may be up for sale.

The Journal says:

VNU NV is considering some radical measures to win the support of institutional shareholders who are skeptical about its $7 billion deal to buy IMS Health Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

and goes on to suggest:

To appease unhappy investors, VNU could seek to sell its business-information unit, which publishes trade magazines such as Hollywood Reporter and Billboard and organizes trade fairs, according to people familiar with the situation. The division could fetch more than €1 billion ($1.2 billion), these people say.

B2B's Sean Callaghan adds:

Industry observers have long speculated that VNU Business Media did not fit in with VNU’s overall effort to limit its exposure to cyclical ad revenues.

Just what they need: investment bankers crawling all over them.

Update: More on this Steven Ennen's post on ABM's Media Pace and from David Shaw who points out (shame on us for not reading more carefully) that this has been in the air for some while.

Waning influence?

Fons Tuinstra posts a very interesting piece on how the influence of Shanghai and Guangzhou appear to be waning, no longer the only and obvious target for foreign investment activity, particularly in the industrial sector. I had been noticing this for some time in my own business activities with a distinct lessening of the pace with which my clients are engaging themselves with Shanghai. I hadn't noticed it with Guangdong although things there are at a different stage of development to Shanghai in the industries I cover and competition among the western companies remains less fierce at this point.

I had also noticed the Financial Times piece which he quotes on Shanghai. Some quite hard hitting stuff there:

Within China, however, Shanghai is quietly losing its lustre as its economic drivers run out of steam and new leaders in Beijing look askance on the privileges bestowed on the city by the previous administration.

Japanese technology insights

Colin Crawford of IDG points us towards this interesting new site from IDG Japan. There is so much going on in the Japanese technology sector that barely makes a ripple in the rest of the world that this has to be a great initiative.

Digital World Tokyo: "IDG Japan has launched a new weblog reporting on the latest news on local consumer technology to the English-speaking world. The site, www.digitalworldtokyo.com is now live. The site will feature news, views, reviews and features not just from Japan, but..

(Via Colin Crawford.)

SEEC Media deals looming

SEEC Media (HKSE: 0205), the Hong Kong business arm of China's leading, crusading financial title Caijing, is stepping out. Shortly after announcing that it would work with Ziff Davis to re-launch PC Magazine in China, the company is rumoured to be close to a deal with Time Inc. to publish Chinese editions of People and Sports Illustrated.

To add to the Alice in Wonderland elements which seem ever present in Chinese publishing, the SEEC Media titles which report on the financial derring do of China's listed companies are ultimately owned in Beijing by the Stock Exchange Council.

China Internet controls codified

Much discussion in the industry today about the significance of new regulations in China, immediately effective, describing more precisely controls over Internet distribution of news. The FT's Asian print edition headlined the story "Beijing promises to keep online news healthy".

It's online edition carries a different headline but the meat of the piece is the same. Although the thrust is that the new regulations make it harder for publishers to circumvent print media regulation by going online, there is a ray of hope for b2b and specialist media. The FT says:

"...the rules appear to give a green light to online coverage of areas such as entertainment and the technology industry, since they define online news as reporting and commentary on politics, economics, military affairs, diplomacy, public issues and social “incidents”."

According to the print version of the story, "the rules [also] restate China's ban on foreign investment in local news organisations". As Mr. Murdoch pointed out in New York the other day, things appear to be tightening up in China.

More steps on China e-commerce

China Stock Blog reports on another move towards facilitating e-commerce in the PRC:

Global Payments (ticker: GPN) which processes electronic transactions for merchants, multinational corporations, financial institutions, consumers, government agencies, and other profit and nonprofit business enterprises reached agreement with HSBC (ticker: HBC) that will give them access to the debit and credit card markets of Mainland China and India.

We have been following this trend this month here, here and here. Once the fluff settles from the crazier deals being done, the facilitation of real commerce online in China could be the most important B2B and general business trend we see emerging there in the next 2 - 3 years.

Marshall moves on

Former CMP Asia CEO Gary Marshall has left the top job at CMP Media in the US, handing over the reins to his number two, Steve Weitzner. Marshall moved to the Manhasset, Long Island HQ of CMP from Hong Kong in 1999 when the company was acquired by the UK's United Business Media. After two years of dotcom boom times, he held the reins during the dramatic decline of technology media in the US after the bubble burst in mid-2001 and subsequent restructuring of the business. The company has made a number of acquisitions in the healthcare sector in recent months as well as announcing an alliance on outsourcing publications with Cybermedia in India.

Chinapages Bokee deal

Mark Natkin's Marbridge Consulting picks up an interesting piece in its weekly newsletter on telecoms and IT news from China. Quoting tech.qianlong.com, it notes that blog portal Bokee, of which much is expected by investment bankers, has acquired Alibaba Jack Ma's original company, Chinapages.

It will now, the newsletter says, "launch a new platform designed to help enterprises and merchants develop online business activities, build client trust and enhance interactive communication. The service, called Bizblog, is accessible at www.bokee.net."

It goes on to say that "The new Bizblog portal includes both enterprise blogging and merchant blogging, blogging facilitates communication among employees, managers, shareholders and clients, while merchant blogging combines the features of blogging with a traditional e-commerce platform, allowing bloggers to post supply and demand information."

ITE in Xinjiang move

I don't usually report on new event launches. However, ITE's 14th September press release did catch my eye. The London-based company has announced nine new fairs to be launched jointly with the Xinjiang International Exhibition Centre in Urumqi, the capital of China's most north-westerly province. A quick glance at your trusty atlas will show you that this puts them as near to Turkey as it does to Beijing. Xinjiang, long known only for melons and sand, is of increasing importance, partly because of its strategic location and partly because it sits over a massive natural gas field.

The press release picks up these points:

Representing a door to the neighbouring oil-rich states of Central Asia, Xinjiang has become the focus of China’s oil and gas interests. China has been actively strengthening its hand in the industry, having purchased PetroKazakhstan to add to its interest in Mangistau in the Caspian Sea, while also developing its own fields in the Junghar Basin. A major oil and gas pipeline running through Xinjiang province from Atyrau on the Caspian Sea has ensured future supplies from Central Asia and delivery to the East.

The capital Urumqi is beginning to reap the benefits of these developments as well as profiting from the racing Chinese economy. The signs of a forthcoming boom are everywhere, with new building projects dominating the skyline, fully booked hotels and 50 weekly flights, as businessmen flock to see what the region has to offer.

"India works"

Hong Kong-based Steve Vickers is one of Asia's most respected business risk consultants. Financeasia.com reports today on some remarks he has made about doing business in India. Highlights of this: he thinks that reports that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into India is one-tenth of the level going into China may be misleading:

The International Finance Corporation suggests the gap is narrower between China and India. Applying a standard measure of FDI, the IFC estimates that China's inflows on average may halve to $20 billion a year while India's more than doubles to $10 billion, reports International Risk.

He also concludes with a suggestion that India business risks are manageable if addressed properly:

"..provided companies take appropriate action to address the risk accordingly and conduct robust due diligence - India works," says Vickers. "It represents a huge opportunity for the investor who has an appetite for detail, is patient and looks to the long term."

As companies find their profits increasingly squeezed in China, and as regulators tighten rather than loosen the boundaries of what can be done in print and broadcast media and, to a lesser extent, the Internet, India will certainly look increasingly attractive. It is not without its challenges, but increasing numbers of people seem to feel that those challenges are worth addressing.

Angel investor service for China media

Fons Tuinstra posts an interesting piece today on Neilsen Media's new report on advertising in China. Good eye-catching stuff.

Total ads spending in China reached 143.4 billion Renminbi (US$17.7) in the first six months of this year, 20 percent more than the same period last year, according to Nielsen Media Research, writes Variety.

What really caught our eye, though, was his advertisement on the same page for an angel investor service with a medical trade magazine as its first offering. Much has been written recently about the difficulty of entrepreneurs in both China and India getting a start. The VCs are much more interested in 'safely' skimming the cream in pre-IPO round financings. Much written, little done about it. So, good luck with this initiative Fons.

(advert)

China Herald Angel investor service
A market place for great projects, looking for initial investment

A medical trade magazine with great future in China looks for an angel investor for USD 100,000. Interested? Ask for more details at the angel-investor service of the China Herald

(Having a great idea for a business in China and looking for exposure to get seed money? Try this 'no cure, no pay' service by the China Herald.

(Via China Herald.)

Asian benchmarks for UBM bonus plan

United Business Media's shareholders (disclosure: including me) have been circulated with a proposal to approve new long-term incentive plans for senior executives at an EGM on 26th September. Like many of these plans, share awards are made if the company's total shareholder return exceeds the median performance of a comparator group.

We were interested to see the list of those the company sees as its peers. There are 20 in all and, of these, two are from the Asia Pacific region; Global Sources and the O'Reilly's APN News & Media in Australia.

Others are:

• Aegis Group
• CNET Networks
  
• DMGT
• Dow Jones
• Emap
• McGraw Hill
  
• Euromoney
• VNU
• Johnston Press
• Wolters Kluwer
• Pearson
• Axel Springer
• Reed Elsevier
• Lagadere
• Reuters
• T&F Informa
• Trinity Mirror
• Thomson
  

China challenges mount for eBay

eBay's development in China remains of keen interest to those tracking how the web will evolve as a tool for small business there. The Yahoolibaba deal may present challenges enough as Alibaba's Taobao.com gains serious muscle, but eBay's mystifying purchase of Skype seems to carry with it the potential for further challenges in China. Stephen Baker's post on Business Week's Blogspotting gets right to the point:

"The Chinese government is cracking down on Skype usage and blocking downloads. Chinese users are figuring out ways to get around this ban, and sharing info about where else to download Skype. But once Skype becomes part eBay, a blue-chip multinational company with interests in China, will it be easier for the Chinese to get Skype to cooperate with this communications crackdown?"