MFGCrunch started this adventure 2009. They have a Facebook group, a Twitter account and a Network at Ning that aggregates the Twitter feed and a news reader about all stories having to do with manufacturing.

Going Global provides country-specific career and employment information and career resources for over 30 countries.

Their career guides inform about job search resources, employment trends, executive recruiters and staffing agencies, work permit regulations and more.

Besides above, you will find a blog, links to several podcasts and webinars on their website.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you “look ahead,” before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

For information about my stay in Paraguay , please visit the new Spanish section of this blog.

You can translate the page easily electronically with the help of Google Translate. Just select on the right column of the “Gerencia Intenacional Blog“ in the drop-down menu in Google Translate your preferred language and the page will be automatically translated. The translation is not perfect, but quite funny and good enough to be understood with a little imagination.

The position paper brings together 40 individual papers prepared by the European Chamber. According to the position paper, China has taken a number of positive steps to improve the market environment for foreign companies since the publication of the last one.

However, many issues remain unresolved and European businesses have encountered new problems as operating conditions in the Chinese market have become increasingly challenging.

Though the issues faced by specific industries become more complex, the overarching theme of this year’s Paper remains clear and simple: European businesses firmly believe that China can – and should – continue the process of opening up its markets and creating a free and fair environment for all businesses operating here.

The members of the European Chamber remain confident in the Chinese market and optimistic about their business prospects here, despite the impact of the economic crisis.

However, right across industries, European businesses are still impeded by issues concerning market access, legal and political transparency and the protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). The spectre of protectionism has also appeared, and European companies are increasingly concerned by the tendency for local companies to be favoured over foreign-invested ones. (European Business in China Position Paper 2009/2010, Executive Summary, p. 6)

The European Business in China Position Paper 2009/2010 can be downloaded from the website of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China as pdf-files[¹] or purchased as hard or CD copy.

The paper is divided in six sections and an appendix:

Section One: Executive Summary

Section Two: Horizontal Issues
Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment, Finance & Taxation, Human Resources, Intellectual Property Rights, Legal, Public Procurement, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Sourcing, Standards and Conformity Assessment

Section Three: Trade in Goods
Automotive and Automotive Components, Carbon Market, Cosmetics, Energy, Food & Beverage, Healthcare Equipment, Heating, Lighting, Non-Ferrous Metals, Petrochemicals, Chemicals and Refining, Pharmaceutical

Section Four: Trade in Services
Aviation, Construction, Information Technology & Telecommunications, Logistics, Maritime Transport, Travel

Section Five: Trade in Financial Services
Financial Services, Banking & Securities, Consumer Finance, Insurance, Private Equity and Strategic Mergers & Acquisitions

Section Six: Local Focus
Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Pearl River Delta, Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin

Appendix
Abbreviations, Economic Data for China

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1. complete version of the position paper (584 p., 13.8 MB) or individual papers

Website Contents:

Starting in business

• Setting up a new business
• Taking over a new business

Managing a business

• Keeping the accounts
• Paying taxes
• Managing staff
• Submitting statistics
• Handling financial difficulties

Doing business responsibly

• Keeping to environmental rules
• Taking sustainability further

Pofiting from the EU market

• Selling goods
• Providing services
• Competing fairly
• benefiting from public contracts

Expanding a business

• Finding business partners
• Opening a branch
• Merging with another company
• Doing business outside the EU

Competing through innovation

• Sharing new ideas
• Conducting research
• Protecting intellectual property

Deciding to stop

• Transferring ownership of a business
• Winding up a business
• Handling bankruptcy and starting afresh

Access to finance

Business support

Information from and about specific member countries can be accessed via an interactive map.

The guide provides general information on the legislative sources of EU and its 27 member state, the European Economic Area (EEA)[²] and the four Member States of the EFTA.

Each of these 33 descriptions has the following structure:

1. Legal gazette
1.1. Overview
1.2. Details on the legal gazette in general
1.3. Details on the online edition
1.4. Details on the publishing institution
1.5. Drafting and publishing procedures

2. Collections of consolidated legislation

3. Legislative portals and online databases
3.1. Official portals
3.2. Official databases
3.3. Additional information: other commonly used legal databases

You may also like to visit the N-Lex website. There you can query national laws in 23 EU countries via a standard search screen, in 22 of the EU’s official languages.

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1. EU Bookshop is an online service giving access to publications from the EU institutions, agencies and other bodies. In addition to the online bookshop, this service will offer an online catalogue and archive of all EU publications.
   EU Bookshop will allow users to search for EU publications, order them and where possible, download copies.
   The online EU Bookshop catalogue contains publications issued in the past three years. Earlier publications can be found in the archive. Please note that some older publications are not yet in the archive as it is still under construction.
2. The European Economic Area (EEA) was established on 1 January 1994 following an agreement[1] between member states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), the European Community (EC), and all member states of the European Union (EU). It allows these EFTA countries to participate in the European single market without joining the EU. Source: Wikipedia

Furthermore, you can follow the recent changes made to the lexicon, read the editor’s picks: Term of the day, basics of finance, in the news, or read the latest and most viewed terms.

The collection spans the presidential administrations of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. The core collection includes evening news broadcasts from ABC, CBS, and NBC (since 1968), an hour per day of CNN (since 1995) and Fox News (since 2004). Special news broadcasts found in the Archive include political conventions, presidential speeches and press conferences, Watergate hearings, coverage of the Persian Gulf War, the events of September 11, 2001, the War in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq.

All the items in its collection are available to the pubic through a loan service. The length of the loan period is flexible. They charge service fees to cover their costs.

Johan Mathisen[²] feels “bolstering potential growth may be the most important element of the strategy to secure a solid recovery”, when looking beyond the short run. In order for not constraining the economic recovery too soon he recommends for advanced economies:

• labor and product markets reforms and
• efforts to rejuvenate the EU’s Lisbon agenda

According to him: “Similar reforms in emerging European economies will facilitate a smoother reallocation of labor to export-oriented sectors—a must in times of dwindling capital flows—and could raise their attractiveness for foreign investment.”

Source and related links: Mathisen, J. (Oct. 3, 2009): Europe: IMF Sees Slow and Fragile Recovery, IMF-Website URL: http://www.imf.org/ext…

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1. You can download the 'Regional Economic Outlook: Europe' as pdf-File from the IMF-Website as pdf-File (80 p.; 851 KB) free of charge or order a print copy at USD 35.00.
2. IMF European Department