AmCham-China Daily

Certificates of conformity must accompany all shipments of consumer goods by November 12.  Read about these important regulations on the AmCham website. AmCham thanks member company Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A for providing this information.

Recently, AmCham-China announced the merger with AmCham Tianjin. The move will bring added services and support to members in Tianjin, while increasing collaboration between the business communities in two of China’s key cities.  In this merger, AmCham Tianjin members will become full members of AmCham-China with all the rights and benefits of membership and the Tianjin organization will be known as AmCham-China, Tianjin Chapter.

 Twelve years ago a group of business leaders in Tianjin came together to form Tianjin’s American Chamber of Commerce.  The result was an organization that benefited from the pooled resources of American business people and companies in Tianjin. The chamber has had a significant positive impact on the local business scene and has been a resource for the American business community in Tianjin.

As Tianjin has grown and become more important, the AmCham Tianjin was challenged again to grow and to meet the changing needs of the city and of the American business community.  In early 2008, we started discussions to join forces with the goal of providing additional services to our combined membership.  On September 9, the AmCham Tianjin board voted unanimously to merge with AmCham-China.  At the September 16 board meeting the AmCham-China board also voted unanimously to merge with AmCham Tianjin establishing an AmCham-China Tianjin Chapter with a local executive committee.

The existing AmCham Tianjin staff will become AmCham-China staff.  The existing AmCham Tianjin members will become AmCham-China members.
AmCham-China members can read answers to frequently asked questions.

Updated Alert for Tainted Milk: 53,000 Infants Sick - News from Beijing United Family Hospital

The number of children across the country who have become sick after drinking milk formula that was tainted with the chemical melamine has grown to 53,000, according to China’s Health Ministry. The Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday that the ministry confirmed that 13,000 infants have been hospitalized, and almost 40,000 other infants and young children have received outpatient medical treatment and consultation as a result of contaminated milk.

Read the full article on the Beijing United Family Hospital website, including a listing of the manufacturers with contaminated products.

Read exclusive articles written by Senators John McCain and Barack Obama in the October issue of AmCham’s China Brief magazine.

As published in AmCham’s China Wire newsletter, Yao Shenhong, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, says that the Ministry of Commerce has not yet received an anti-monopoly examination and approval application from Coca-Cola regarding its acquisition of Huiyuan Juice. Read more on the AmCham site.

Many of us have heard or read anecdotes recently regarding new Chinese visa policies and the increased stringency of visa policy enforcement. As the specifics of each case vary greatly, we are asking our members to relate their recent personal experiences with the China business visa process in order to gauge the impact of these recent changes on them and their business operations.

AmCham members, please watch your e-mail box for a link to the visa survey.

If you are a current member and didn’t get a copy, please e-mail Bill.Hart@amcham-china.org.cn to get the link.

The chamber will be compiling the results of this survey in the coming days.

The United States Olympic Committee has filed a lawsuit against two ticket sellers for duping would-be ticket buyers. The story, reported by New York Times, calls out http://beijing-2008tickets.com/ and http://www.beijingticketing.com/ for illegally using Olympic trademarks and failing to provide tickets to people who had paid for them.

The suit calls for the sites’ domain names to be impounded and http://beijing-2008tickets.com/ appears to be offline.

AP report quotes an official with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce saying that the office is not accepting business visa applications related to general matters, such as attending conferences, visiting factories and business negotiations. The good news is there is an end in sight; the restrictions are expected to be lifted on September 20. Read the full story. 

From the Beijing 2008 Olympic website:

Beijing 2008 Olympic ticket general public sales Phase 4 will be launched on 25 July 2008, and there will be 820,000 tickets on sale. After the sale is launched, general public can only purchase the tickets at the venue box offices within the business hours.

Check the Olympic site for details.  

The Department of Commerce recently released two clean energy technology export guides to help US businesses navigate the Chinese and Indian energy markets. The DOC states that these guides provide information on current political and market conditions as well as future opportunities in these two growing economies. They also offer detailed information on Chinese and Indian national and local clean energy promoters and regulators.

The guides were issued as the DOC prepares to lead a clean energy and environmental products trade mission to China and India during the first two weeks of September. 

AmCham-China members can download the detailed document, courtesy of member company Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg.