CCTV9英语新闻：Chinese 'returnees' now backbone of start-ups

Homegrown talent who have come back from overseas, are now the backbone of start-up businesses. That's as the government cuts red tape, makes things easier for smaller companies, and encourages what it calls "grassroots entrepreneurship and mass innovation". One figure shows that about half of all overseas returnees have started their own businesses. For more, CCTV's Jin Yingqiao joins me in the studio.

 

Q1, Good evening Yingqiao. So just what majors are coming back?

 

Jin: Let's check out some facts and figures. The Center for China and Globalization is a think tank that publishes an annual report on the development of Chinese nationals who have returned from study overseas. The center says 70 percent of all start-ups by overseas returnees focus on the Internet, IT, and the communications sector. Roughly 20 percent of those businesses are in counselling, legal services and education. Now let's take a look at one returnee from South Korea

 

Overseas returnees have contributed significantly to the government's push for entrepreneurship and innovation. It may be the know-how, the access, or quite simply the ideas. Either way, Chinese who have returned from overseas are either founders or executives of a whopping 70 percent of all Nasdaq-listed Chinese high-tech firms.

 

Liang Qiqi went to grad school in South Korea, where she also worked part-time at the national broadcaster KBS. It was there that she found that virtually none of the world's leading animation figures were of Chinese origin. She wanted to change that.

 

After returning to China, Liang spent two years accumulating start-up funds and searching for potential partners.

 

"I picked all my partners from school one by one. I went to their classes and spent months in schools with them," Liang said.

 

It was a year in the making before Liang started her business. With an average age of 24, the young firm soon faced cost burdens.

 

"When I negotiated with animation companies in Japan, I slept at the airport to save on hotel costs for the night. Every cent now mattered. With that said, I want my staff to be treated better. They might be eating 15-yuan take-outs while I myself am ordering eight-yuan ones," Liang said.

 

Liang says the government's efforts in promoting entrepreneurship and self-motivation have offered major appeal to young business owners like herself.

 

Authorities in Zhejiang, where Liang's business is based, have waived office rent for her for three years. But still, running a business is no easy job.

 

"At first, I was set on getting the company listed some day. I even pictured myself ringing the Nasdaq bell like Jack Ma. Come to think of it now, that might actually be quite distant. If you can do this small thing right and make the company profit every month, that'd be a success for the firm already, albeit a very small one," Liang said.

 

Liang's experience is shared by a growing number of new firms in China. The number jumped roughly 40 percent year on year this first quarter.

 

Overseas returnees, in particular, are playing an increasingly vital role. And they've got some powerful backing up. Recently, a school offering support especially for returnees was started, with Bob Xu at the helm, who was the co-founder of China's massively popular English-teaching institute New Oriental. He is a returnee himself.

 

"Our school aims to give returnees good grounds for entrepreneurship. We provide them with resources, knowledge and capability. All our training actually helps them identify where the pitfalls are in starting up a business," Bob Xu with Zhen Fund said.

 

Q2, Since the reform and opening up, there has been more and more people studying overseas. Walk us through the different stages of their "coming back".

 

Jin: Three waves of overseas Chinese have returned since the reform and opening up. Their job targets have changed in each wave. In the first, overseas returnees flooded transnational companies in China after the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. The second was marked by returnees entering the public sector as the government beefed up public administration levels -- also around the beginning of the century. And the third and latest is now concentrated in the high-tech sector.