Full Contents - July 2006

Moving in on mass premium
After a number of high-profile slip-ups, foreign multinationals are homing in on a Chinese market that can deliver both high margins and large sales volumes
Truths hide in the export figures
Forget talk of China pricing itself out of the international market. Its exports to the EU are alive and well - although one important factor will be what happens to the dollar
A capital clean-up job
With share price-stifling problems all but resolved, regulators must focus on ensuring strong corporate governance
Regulators rule as judge and jury
Foreign players looking to set up in China's financial services sector are entering a regulatory battlefield where the rules of engagement are alien to the ones back home
Suffocating supply
New measures aimed at cooling the the real estate market are destined to have a minimal impact

Honesty is the best policy
Times are hard for Agricultural Bank of China (ABC). While its fellow Big Four members are being recapitalized, repackaged and launched into the public domain, ABC remains stuck in a rut. This rut is so deep that there has been talk of the government mulling plans to put the debt-ridden lender to the sword by breaking it up into several regional entities.

Cheap but no longer flexible
It's not the end of cheap labor, but a new law under consideration will fundamentally tighten China's human resources landscape
Ports list in murky waters
Tianjin Port finally listed in Hong Kong, but the long road was a warning of potential problems with IPOs from state-run firms
Choose your own adventure
Online gaming is one of the most lucrative areas of China's Internet industry, with local players offering users everything from an online alter-ego to just plain Mah Jong
Dial IP for access
Pfizer's Viagra win has given foreign drug makers a boost, but IP may still be the entry price for access to the world's fastest-growing pharmaceutical market

Barefoot doctors, tipsy farmers
Graham Earnshaw is walking from Shanghai to Tibet when he has the time, starting always from the last place he stopped. This month we find him west of Yuexi in the Dabie Mountains in southwest Anhui Province

FAT DRAGON / It's not easy being E & Y
Poor old Ernst & Young. Normally one wouldn't feel sorry for one of the accountancy world's Big Four who are called upon by corporate clients throughout the world to sprinkle holy water on their accounting gray areas.

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