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China Business Cast is a podcast featuring experienced entrepreneurs and business people making things happen in China. If you want to learn from on the ground accounts of how business actually gets done in China, this is the program for you.
About Michelle Garnaut
Michelle Garnaut, AO is an Australian restaurateur and best known for her series of restaurants and philanthropic work in China. She began her career as one of China's most celebrated restaurateurs in 1989, when she opened M at the Fringe in Hong Kong. It swiftly grew into a city institution, and in 1999, M on the Bund opened, the first independent restaurant on the historic Shanghai waterfront. Like its predecessor, it soon became a beloved oasis for locals, visitors and lovers of good food and warm service. In 2009 she opened Capital M on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Michelle is also a founder of the Shanghai International Literary Festival, the M Literary Residency, the Village People Project and has spearheaded Mentor Walks across Asia, where up-and-coming professional women can seek advice from experienced mentors. Mentor Walks now operates in Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane and continues to spread around Asia.
Michelle is the recipient of many international honours, including the inaugural award in Food at the Advance Global Australian Awards. She sits on various boards including the Advance Global Board. In 2015 Michelle was invited to the 'Legends Hall of Fame' which pays tribute to the leaders, ground breakers and visionaries of Australia and Victoria’s food and wine industry.
She was made an ‘Officer of the Order of Australia’ in the Australia Day Honours List 2018.
Episode Content:
Closing down one of the oldest Western restaurants in Shanghai might seem discouraging for some entrepreneurs, yet the founder has several learnings to keep us inspired. During the interview we spoke of business in China, women entrepreneurs and what it means to be ‘successful’.
Michelle says ‘being successful’ means a business needs to make money and allow her to do things that she really wants to do. And to get there you need to work hard and become the best at things you really want to do. She says it’s really that simple. 🤔
The questions we discussed in the episode:
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About EU SME Centre
The EU SME Centre is a European Union initiative that provides a comprehensive range of hands-on support services to European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), getting them ready to do business in China. Experts in the Centre provide advice and support in four areas – business development, law, standards and conformity and human resources. Collaborating with external experts worldwide, the Centre converts valuable knowledge and experience into practical business tools and services easily accessible online.
The EU SME Centre is now managed by five implementing partners who guide the strategic development and management of the Centre through their knowledge and experience of the China market-- China-Britain Business Council, China-Italy Chamber of Commerce in China, Danish Chamber of Commerce in China, EUROCHAMBRES and European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
About Alessio Petino
Mr. Alessio Petino has been living in Beijing since 2011 and is very fluent in Chinese. As a frequent speaker and moderator at various meetings and expert-level discussions, he was regularly involved in the activities of various European networks and platforms in China. For the past 5+ years, he has been working on various EU-funded projects in China, mainly doing research and analysis in the following areas: R&D and innovation policy, high-tech zones, investment attraction policies and market access. His key areas of expertise are China’s R&I funding programs at both national (NKPs, NSFC, Megaprojects) and local level, international R&I co-funding mechanisms, government incentives and subsidies, as well as market access and opportunities for SMEs.
About China Customs Officer
The Customs Officer is the Director of TBT Research Centre of International Research Center for Inspection and Quarantine Standards and Technical Regulation of GACC and the main drafter of Orders 248 and 249 of the General Administration of Customs.
He has been engaged in the research of food, chemical technical trade measures, risk analysis and risk warning. He has been awarded with the second and third prizes of the scientific and technological inspections at the ministerial for the research projects he participated in. Additionally, he edited and participated in a dozen of related books. He has played a positive role in removing foreign technical trade barriers, establishing China’s technical preventive measure system, and promoting the development of foreign economic trade.
About Lina Bartuseviciute
Ms. Lina Bartuseviciute has been in Shanghai for almost 12 years. Due to her cultural know-how and language proficiency, as well as International Relations Master's Degree in Fudan, she has been included in multiple high stakes governmental meetings and negotiations, hosted numerous delegations and bilateral talks. Since 2015, she has founded LITAO www.litaogroup.com - a business consulting firm focusing on China Market Entry, which works to bring quality European F&B brands to China market, with support from European Union.
About Raymond NG
Mr. Raymond Ng is the Regulatory Affairs Consultant at Accestra Consulting. He has a Master’s degree from University of Nottingham and has extensive knowledge on Chinese Food & Beverage, Cosmetics and Pharmaceutical import & export regulations. His research specialises in China’s national standards and the impact it has on international businesses. He has vast insight and practical experience in dealing with Chinese market access requirements and accumulated a successful track record with supporting international exporters with market entry in to China.
About Lavinia Yao
Ms. Lavinia Yao is the Senior Regulatory Consultant at Accestra Consulting. She has a Master’s degree from Zhejiang University in Food Science and Engineering. Ms. Yao has years of experience in the food industry and is an expert in China food laws, regulations and national standards. Her daily work involves solving practical food regulatory problems for global food businesses, covering regulatory compliance in food labelling, food additives registration, health foods, food contact materials related regulations and others. She is often invited as a keynote speaker to numerous high-level conferences organized by the government; an indispensable asset in her line of work for responding to international client's needs.
Episode Content:
In April 2021, China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) issued two regulations, Order 248 and Order 249, that will prevent businesses to export their products to China if they have not registered on the GAC platform before the 1st of January 2022.
We cover all kinds of questions around the mandatory regulations, but in short, it comes down to the following:
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About Bjorn van der Veen:
Originally from the Netherlands, Bjorn is an experienced Digital Marketing and e-commerce professional who has been living in China for 15 years. He has worked in Online and Digital Marketing for 12 years and is a trusted Tmall Partner.
In 2015, he launched Arctic Solutions, a full-service e-commerce solutions provider, that focuses on temperature-controlled products for the Chinese market.
Ranging from -21 to 21 degrees, Arctic Solutions covers everything from logistics, customs clearance, temperature controlled warehousing, last mile delivery, customer service, cross border payments, technical solutions and marketing.
Episode Content:
Recently we hear food exporters started worrying that the Chinese consumers are afraid of buying imported foods, especially frozen, because of the severe COVID-19 outbreaks associated with the facilities where imported foods were stored and handled. We wanted to know what are the actual impacts of COVID-19 in the food sector and what can be done to improve the cold-chain management during the pandemic.
We cover all kinds of things around e-commerce and cold-chain, but in short, it comes down to the following:
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In this episode, we will mainly focus on the following questions:
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In 2001, China became a member of WTO, and thousands of Chinese companies wanted to go abroad. One big problem was that these Chinese companies didn’t understand the culture, policies and regulatory requirements there. Helen started her career in this field since 2007 when she joined a consulting company which helps Chinese companies to have their presence in other countries. Now she is still working in this field but mainly helps foreign companies enter the China market.
It has been only 20 years since 2001. During the first decade, Chinese local companies wanted to go abroad. But in the past ten years, there were incredibly increasing numbers of overseas companies who are quite interested in the China market and want to understand how China market runs.
In this episode, we will mainly focus on following questions:
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About Elijah Whaley:
Elijah Whaley has over two decades of experience as a content producer and marketer, with eight years focused on KOL marketing in China. Until acquisition in 2020, Elijah was the CMO of PARKLU. Elijah is now the VP of Marketing APAC at Launchmetrics. Elijah was also the Co-founder of one of China’s top-ranking beauty KOL, Melilim Fu.
Episode Content:
I have admired PARKLU for their ability to simplify the complex world of China marketing, and I have admired Elijah for giving out all the most valuable industry secrets to everyone who is willing to listen.
No wonder PARKLU has become the go-to-platform for most foreign luxury fashion & cosmetics brands, and Elijah got featured in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Vogue Business and many other valuable publications for his exclusive knowledge and understanding of Chinese consumers.
We have known each other for some time, but only got to meet last year - and found out that we have a similar perception on the value a business should create for the clients, yet work in a very different capacity [LITAO works on building a B2B network and sales, while Elijah helps brands sell to B2C network online].
I promise our conversation is going to be very interesting for anyone thinking about China! Subscribe and enjoy!
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When the digital payment technology got integrated to social media platforms, China changed. And now is becoming an inspiration for global corporations when trying to foster innovation and leadership.
Chinaany is famous for its de-centralized network of shopping channels, and the speed of transformation which is unprecedented elsewhere in the world. The aim of this episode is to help global decision-makers develop awareness to what is possible in business, have a better understanding of the current China market and to help foreign brands build cross-cultural competences by showing real-life examples of leadership, new retail and consumers in China.
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Online trade fairs have become very popular in recent years in China, especially after the outbreak of covid-19. Some foreign companies find out that there are markets for their products and want to attend the trade fairs in China, not only online fairs or hybrid fairs, but also physical fairs.
However, in many cases those companies may encounter with problems on how to introduce them to the visitors, or how to attract people’s attention, etc. In this webinar the experts mainly focused on the question listed below and shared their insights and stories from their experience.
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Bio Jonathan Chapon
Jonathan is a very humble guy with an impressive track record as an international health insurance broker. After coming to China as an exchange student in 2007, he returned in 2009 and have been climbing the corporate ladder at Abacare ever since. As he says basically the only thing he did not do is cleaning the carpet. It is quite rare to find an expat working at a company for 12 years with full passion and dedication. He is an inspiration and we are excited that we can share his story and industry knowledge with all of you.
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Things in China are always changing faster than any other place in the world, especially when connected with technology, with patent and with laws. Because of the constant change, there are always huge market in China, which attracts companies all over the world. However, when a foreign company enters China market, it will definitely encounter with problems in rules, in trademark registration process, in patent protection, in communication with local agents and distributors, etc.
Sometimes it may find that the products or the name is already existed in China. Sometimes the problems are caused by misconception. Sometimes they are caused by choosing the wrong categories and classes where the company wants to protect itself. What can we do? Today, we will be focusing on the following questions:
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Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian.
A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest.
But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know.
She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and
captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world.
Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s
blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.
Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but
all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and
left a community in shock.
Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.
New episodes every Monday.
Follow Scamanda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Amanda’s blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horn.
