Foreign Manufacturing Multinationals and the Transformation of the Chinese Economy: New Measurements, New Perspectives

What is the relationship between foreign manufacturing multinational corporations (MNCs) and the expansion of indigenous technological and managerial technological capabilities among Chinese firms? China has been remarkably successful in designing industrial policies, joint venture requirements, and technology transfer pressures to use FDI to create indigenous national champions in a handful of prominent sectors: high speed rail transport, information technology, auto assembly, and an emerging civil aviation sector. But what is striking in the aggregate data is how relatively thin the layer of horizontal and vertical spillovers from foreign manufacturing multinationals to indigenous Chinese firms has proven to be. Despite the large size of manufacturing FDI inflows, the impact of multinational corporate investment in China has been largely confined to building plants that incorporate capital, technology, and managerial expertise controlled by the foreigner. As the skill-intensity of exports increases, the percentage of the value of the final product that derives from imported components rises sharply. China has remained a low value-added assembler of more sophisticated inputs imported from abroad--a “workbench” economy. Where do the gains from FDI in China end up? While manufacturing MNCs may build plants in China, the largest impact from deployment of worldwide earnings is to bolster production, employment, R&D, and local purchases in their home markets. For the United States the most recent data show that US-headquartered MNCs have 70 percent of their operations, make 89 percent of their purchases, spend 87 percent of their R&D dollars, and locate more than half of their workforce within the US economy--this is where most of the earnings from FDI in China are delivered.Foreign Direct Investment, International Investment, China, Multinational Corporations, Exports

Spam filtering based on preference ranking

When the average number of spam messages received is continually increasing exponentially, both the Internet service provider and the end user suffer. The lack of an efficient solution may threaten the usability of the email as a communication means. In this paper we present a filtering mechanism applying the idea of preference ranking. This filtering mechanism will distinguish spam emails from other email on the Internet. The preference ranking gives the similarity values for nominated emails and spam emails specified by users, so that the ISP/end users can deal with spam emails at filtering points. We designed three filtering points to classify nominated emails into spam email, unsure email and legitimate email. This filtering mechanism can be applied on both middleware and at the client-side. The experiments show that high precision, recall and TCR (total cost ratio) of spam emails can be predicted for the preference based filtering mechanisms. <br /

Mexico’s global players. A. Great diversity of outward-investing industries in 2008. B. The impact of the global crisis on Mexican MNEs varies by industry in 2009

The foreign assets of the 19 companies ranked in table 1 below totaled about US$97 billion in 2008. Their overseas sales were about US$ 58 billion and the number of their employees abroad was around 190,000. The company in first place, Cemex, is ranked 45th among the 100 largest non-financial MNEs in the world that UNCTAD‘s World Investment Report presented in its 2009 edition. In this same report, in addition to CEMEX, another four Mexican companies appear among the 100 largest non-financial MNEs of developing countries... In 2009, the 20 companies listed in table 1 below posted about US$117 billion in foreign assets, 63 billion in foreign sales, and had 227,484 employees in their overseas operations. The top three companies on the list are CEMEX, America Movil, and Carso Global Telecom, which together controlled US$ 86 billion in foreign assets, which was 73% of the total on the list. The leading sectors on the list are food and beverages (4 firms), non-metallic minerals (4 firms), and telecommunications (2 firms)

Artificial intelligence and big data in the Maritime Silk Road Initiative: The road towards Sea Power 2.0

China’s Belt and Road Initiative continues to attract considerable attention from scholars and observers in diverse fields. However, students of the Belt and Road Initiative (‘the Initiative’) have focused extensively on the land and sea dimensions of this grand project while only tentatively touching on its other dimensions. This article draws attention to the digital and maritime dimensions of the Initiative, which are respectively known as the Digital Silk Road Initiative and the Maritime Silk Road Initiative. Specifically, the article focuses on how artificial intelligence and big data, as promoted under the Digital Silk Road Initiative, intersect with the Maritime Silk Road Initiative to produce what the author refers to as Sea power 2.0. To contextualise this intersection, the article draws on patent data to show how artificial intelligence and big data are adopted in supply chains. The results from the patent analysis show that artificial intelligence and big data will play a crucial role in future supply chains, and hence, the Maritime Silk Road Initiative. Although the article focuses mostly on the commercial side of Sea power 2.0, it concludes by pointing out how artificial intelligence and big data could serve military objectives

The ICT Landscape in Brazil, India and China

The Information Society Unit at IPTS (European Commission) has been investigating the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector and ICT R&D in Asia for several years. This research exercise led to three reports, written by national experts, on China, India and Taiwan, each one including a dataset and a technical annex. This report offers a synthesis on three out of the four BRIC countries (Brazil, India, Russia, China). The report describes, for each of the three countries (Brazil, India, China), its ICT sector, and gives a company level assessment. It also analyses Indian ICT R&D strategies, and assesses the innovation model. In 2010, BRIC countries accounted for 13% of global demand, with spending of about €328 billion in ICT (EITO, 2011). Therefore, they are becoming major players as producers of ICT goods and services. China has become the world’s largest producer of ICT products (exports of ICT increased fourfold between 2004 and 2008). This impressive growth of the ICT market is translated into R&D expenditures and output. Innovative capability in Asia has grown, the dynamics in terms of catching up are strong. Asian countries are increasingly present in the ICT R&D global landscape.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

The World upside down, China's R&D and innovation strategy

Intervention au séminaire "BRICs" du 14 novembre 2011, sur le thème : "La stratégie de Recherche et Développement et l'innovation en Chine "R&D and innovation have become much more strategic than ever before for the growth of China as well as for its global societal upgrade. The Chinese authorities have designed an innovation strategy to face new economic and social challenges. The first part of the paper is focused on the emergence of the policy, in the 2006-2020 Plan for S&T, with a historical perspective explaining the legacy of the past in today's choices. In the second part, we illustrate China's catching up strategy through four sectors (high-speed trains, aeronautics, clean energy, IT) and discuss its potential impact on the world industry.La R&D et l'innovation sont plus stratégiques que jamais pour la croissance de la Chine aussi bien que pour le progrès global de sa société. Les autorités chinoises ont mis en place une stratégie d'innovation pour affronter de nouveaux défis économiques et sociaux. La première partie de ce papier se concentre sur l'émergence de cette politique, dans le Plan de 2006-2020 pour les Sciences et Techniques, avec une perspective historique qui explique l'héritage du passé dans les choix contemporains. Dans la seconde partie, nous illustrons la stratégie de rattrapage de la Chine dans quatre secteurs (les trains à grande vitesse, l'aéronautique, l'énergie propre et technologies de l'information) et discutons de ses impacts potentiels sur l'industrie dans le monde

The impact of China's regulatory regime on foreign franchisors' entry and expansion strategies

Since the Open Door reforms adopted by China in 1978 ended 30 years of isolation, introduced massive economic and legal reforms, encouraged foreign investment and resurrected private enterprise, China has become the world's third largest and fastest growing economy. Under the influence of China's WTO accession commitments, China's markets are increasingly open for foreign investment. These developments, and China's 1.3 billion population and stable political environment, have led to China becoming an increasingly attractive market for foreign franchise systems. In China, as in other countries, the law has played a significant role in improving the environment for franchising. But in China, a country where franchising as a business concept was virtually unknown until the 1990s, the law has had a more fundamental role through creating the environment in which franchising was possible. Until the 1997 Interim Franchise Measures recognised franchising as a legitimate method of domestic business operation, franchising was not possible. Until WTO accession commitments led to market liberalisation reforms in 2004 the development of a franchise network by a foreign franchisor was of doubtful validity. Until the 2007 Franchise Regulation provided a unified regulatory regime for domestic and foreign franchisors under which contractual and proprietary rights arc recognised and protected the franchising option has been seriously curtailed. This thesis examines the impact of the law, and law reform primarily WTO induced, on the development of franchising in China from the perspective of the foreign franchisor. It concludes that foreign franchisors' entry and expansion strategies in China reflect not only cultural, commercial and other environmental considerations which influence any international franchising decision, but also a regulatory regime which has both created and constrained opportunities. The thesis traces the development of the regulatory regime for foreign franchisors and makes recommendations for its further refinement including legislative clarity as to the validity of cross border franchising into China through master franchising and area development agreements