User Comments - christine30550

christine30550

Posted on: Starting a Company in China

December 16, 2009 at 10:51 AM

Hi pretzellogic,

Well, here too, after you've gone through all the procedures successfully, you need to put in the registered capital (I didn't mention in my last post). And that's quite a bit of money if you're a foreign entity setting up a WFOE here. I think it was a minimum of 100'000 USD (but I'd have to double check - you can probably google it with WFOE, China, registered capital).

Plus, China has very strict rules on foreign money flowing into the country, ie, loans are restricted. In our case, a maximum of 30% of the total capital could be made up of loans (I think depending on the amount of total capital, this ratio can vary). So this means you have to put down a lot of cash up front which you can not pay back - e.g. to your HQ company - over time.

Posted on: Starting a Company in China

December 16, 2009 at 9:59 AM

Hi pretzellogic,

How much does it cost to establish a firm, given the need for these licenses and so on? I'm not even talking about the actual office and hiring workers, just the legalities of setting it up?

As far as I remember, the actual licenses didn't cost all that much, perhaps a few hundred or thousand RMB (not sure anymore). Most of the cost for the set-up procedures went to the lawyer who supported us (it can cost a lot of expensive time if an authority refuses your documents because you copied them double-sided instead of one-sided or because you signed in blue instead of black ink and have to repeat the whole process. All of which happened to us...).

Posted on: Starting a Company in China

December 16, 2009 at 9:50 AM

Hi Jenny,

Many thanks! The 热烈 is reserved for the 欢迎, right? :-).

Yes, the WFOE is a funny acronym, always reminds me of a dog.

Posted on: Starting a Company in China

December 16, 2009 at 8:34 AM

Ooooh, 我也热烈地推荐（可以这样说吗？）潘先生请个本地代理帮他办注册流程哦。 I went through the process of registering a WFOE here in Shanghai, and it is quite 繁琐 even with a 代理。There seem to be a million authorities involved, and each one wants various forms and documents. But a good 代理 will guide you through the whole process, and after a few months (in our case), we were in possession of a bundle of company documents as well as the 6 Golden (well, red) Stamps, or chops (company chop, finance chop, legal rep 法人 chop, fa piao chop, contract chop, and customs chop). With those in hands, you can do anything here. A red stamp in China is what an authorized signature would be in Europe. Last time I went to the post office, I counted 18 (!) chops on the clerk's desk, in all shapes and sizes.

Posted on: A Charming Café in Shanghai

December 8, 2009 at 1:24 PM

Hi bodawei,

Your comment on the crêpe reminded me of a funny little misunderstanding I had with my American cousin who had no idea what we were talking about when we suggested making crêpes (也就是"crepp") for breakfast. Only after we had practically finished making them it dawned on him: "oh, CRAPES"! (which in turn probably no French speaking person would understand)

Posted on: 扎着麻花辫的女孩三

December 3, 2009 at 6:13 AM

哦，Jiaojie和David最后讨论的问题突然让我想起曾经看过的一部丹麦电影，叫《Open Hearts》 (原名为《Elsker dig for evigt》，也就是“永远地爱你”的意思）。故事情节是：一对年轻人，即将要结婚，但有一天，男孩竟然发生了交通事故，结果他变成了残疾人。一下子，这对情人的“生活之路”有了很大的变化。这部电影很让人不安，是比较"heavy"的 (no wonder, it's a Scandinavian film...)，但是很值得看。