A few days ago, Stephen Harper which is the Prime Minister, announced an agreement with China to establish Canada as the first trading-hub in the North America, for the Chinese currency, the Yuan. That means, Canadian companies can directly deal with Chinese companies in their own currency, there is no need to change to US dollar, that makes the business easier and less expensive for merchants.

I think to set this trading-hub is a significant development and a major win for Canadians, Canada financial industry and Toronto, because China is one of the world’s largest economies and Canada’s second largest trading partner, this trading-hub gives Canada’s companies a comparative advantage. A Canadian Chamber of commence estimated that the benefit of the Yuan trading-hub can create more than $30 billion in direct trade benefits.  Canada’s international reputation as a global trading nation has been given a major boosting with this new agreement.

Sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-china-sign-currency-deal-aimed-at-boosting-trade-1.2828707

Canadian dollar fell to the lowest level in five months, since October 23, 2013, the Canadian dollar lost 6.8% against US dollar with two-third of the drop occurring in January alone, the combination of the growing though limited, expectations that the bank may cut rate in 2014 stagnant commodity price, and a recovery in positive sentiment towards US dollar had a hand in the Canadian dollars drop. It fell to the lowest as crude oil, the nation’s largest export, traded at almost the lowest point in more than a year.

However, a weakening Canadian dollar for most of country’s companies, boosting profit earning in US dollars relatives to cost in the local currency, companies in the energy, forestry and mining sectors that have most of their production in Canada while selling their products in US dollars will benefits the most. So a weaker dollar is a welcome news for large swaths of the economy that have struggle to recover from the recession, most notably manufactures, for those company’s sales are in US dollars, a lower Canadian dollar means higher profits and more money to invest and increase workers. Also for the international students, they have the benefit too, because as the Canadian dollar lower, the exchange rate between their countries’ currency and Canadian dollar is lower, so the tuition fee they paid and the living fee they spent will become less, so that’s a good news for me, as i am an international student~

Sources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/why-a-lower-loonie-is-mostly-good-for-canada/article16287580/?page=all

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-11/canadian-dollar-falls-to-almost-4-month-low-as-crude-oil-drops.html

“The sales of fake goods is a common problem faced by e-commence sites that allow third partied to sell on their platform”, this is said by a financial journalism professor at FuDan University. I agreed with what he said, because it is really hard for platform operator to ensure the quantity and authenticity of goods offer by this third-party merchants since there are hundreds or even thousand of such merchants on such platforms.

As China is growing up, the life of Chinese people become more busy, along with the rise online shopping mode, more people choose to buy goods they need online instead of go to a retail store. Some girls in China fanatical with buying Make-ups online, because they think it’s more convenient. So many online cosmetics seller are born at this right moment, such as Jumei.com, however as the shop online is control by the third parties, so you don’t know the make-up you buy is a truly one of just fake. Recently, several Chinese online make-up website apologized for the fake cosmetics they sell, they said that it is really hard to figure out ways to ensure that fake make-up doesn’t sell on their platform by third-party merchants. And in China, the supervised power for Internet or online shopping is really small. That’s makes the fake make-up online so rampant.

Also not only in China, in other countries,such as Indonesia, the counterfeit percentage of cosmetics is 6.4%. According to a news report, the profit margin for selling a single counterfeit lipstick from MAC could be as high as $10, so i think the high profit earned could also be the reason why fake make-up so rampant.

Sources:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1561893/chinas-top-online-cosmetics-seller-apologises-fake-goods-sold-its

http://www.havocscope.com/tag/fake-makeup/

https://blogs.ubc.ca/zhexinzhang/2014/11/09/blog-8/

-From Zhexin Zhang’s Blog

Why Alibaba made business more convenient?

As my blog before, https://blogs.ubc.ca/hellojune/2014/10/04/alibaba-i-p-o-the-big-picture/， I’ve already talked about how important Alibaba can be and how huge business it made. Chinese Singles Day(11/11), is China biggest e-commerce sales day,It is even than America’s Cyber Monday. Last year, Taobao.com and Tmall.com took only 8 minutes to reach 100 millions RMB(equivalent to $15.8m) in transaction volume and at the end of that day, transaction volume reached 3.36 billions.How huge the number is!

How Alibaba turned 1111 into $$$$, thanks to e-commerce prowess of China’s Alibaba Group,Singles day become the world largest online shopping day. Alibaba hold the promotion and sales each year on its shopping site on November 11th which is tomorrow. It’s expected to generate about $8.18 billion in sales for Alibaba, up 42% from last year. The start of the day is a joke, It wasn’t long before Alibaba realized the marketing potential of the holiday. Five years ago, Alibaba, which is China’s e-commerce site ,began to holding its own 11.11 sales. So Alibaba really change the online shopping mode and make business more convenient.

Sources:

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-alibaba-turned-1111-into/

https://blogs.ubc.ca/ziranwang/2014/10/04/in-memory-of-steve-jobs/

– From Ziran Wang’s blog

The 5th of October,2014, was the 3rd anniversary of passing of Steve Jobs. Almost three years ago, which is 4th of October,2011, Tim Cook announced a new generation of iphone: iphone 4s. As i was using the newest generation of iphone: iphone6, i was shocked by the originality created by Steve Jobs.

As Ziran said, Steve changed the world by his greatest innovation, Apple, along with several devices, the first personal computer, iMouse, ipod (which i am using NOW), iphone, ipad. These all makes our live today more colourful and convenience.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

                                                                        – Steve Jobs – Rest In Peace

Steve Jobs became famous also because of his magnetic charisma and incredible showmanship, which he demonstrated at every Apple event. Although they seemed unrehearsed, these events were rehearsed and rehearsed several times over, and preparing for them was a huge part of Jobs’s job — as well as many people at Apple.

MAY YOU REST IN PEACE.

Sources:

http://allaboutstevejobs.com/persona/steveatwork.php

First Nation is set to declare a vast chunk of the Chilcotin as a tribal park, including the site of the controversial proposed New Prosperity mine at Fish Lake.A formal ceremony unveiling Dasiqox Tribal Park is set for Oct. 4, less than four months after a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling found that the Tsilhqot’in people have title to 1,750 square kilometres of land west of Williams Lake.Since Canada was created in 1867, the federal government has been in charge of aboriginal affairs. The Indian Act, which was enacted in 1876 and has since been amended, allows the government to control most aspects of aboriginal life: Indian status, land, resources, wills, education, band administration and so on.

Dave Williams, president of Friends of the Nemiah Valley, which works closely with the Tsilhqot’in people on conservation projects, explained in an interview that large-scale industrial mining and clear-cut logging would not be allowed in the tribal park, but that smaller-scale resource activities such as sustainable logging with portable mills may be suitable to provide employment for natives.

Between 1879 and 1996, tens of thousands of First Nations children attended residential schools designed to make them forget their language and culture, where many suffered abuse. On behalf of Canadians, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a formal apology in 2008 to Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples for this policy that sought to “kill the Indian in the child.”Many aboriginal people have an ambivalent relationship with the Indian Act. They denounce its paternalism, but are at the same time reluctant to give up its protections, such as tax exemptions in the reserves.Some aboriginal communities have chosen to throw off the yoke of this law by signing treaties to form their own governments and manage their own affairs.

Sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/background-the-indian-act-1.1056988

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Unilateral+park+declared+Tsilhqot+includes+Prosperity+mine/10192766/story.html

Last week’s launch of our new Blackberry Passport handset provides a clear indication of BlackBerry’s singular focus: We are innovating mobile technology for serious users who care about serious productivity. The BlackBerry Passport offers powerful hardware and a clever keyboard that makes for a great reading and editing experience.The BlackBerry Passport is a pure productivity machine, and emblematic of the company’s professional, business-focused mindset. It’s packing powerful hardware, a slew of clever features, and a great foundation in BlackBerry OS 10.3, which is poised to give iOS and Android a run for their money — if there are enough apps.

Security, battery life and typing – those have always been BlackBerry differentiators and they are the core competencies professional users still expect from their devices. And let’s be honest: Most smartphones on the market are inadequate at meeting various (and sometimes all) of those basic technical needs.

From my point of view, Blackberry has stopped trying to kill the iPhone because they realized that they can’t kill the iPhone? No, i don’ t think so. Imagine if that demographic all of a sudden didn’t want to be associated with the game players out there. If they once again saw the blackberry as an exclusive device for those who have serious work to do. Even if these people had two phones and one was a iPhone, it’s still a win for Blackberry. Go Blackberry!

Sources:

http://bgr.com/2014/10/02/blackberry-passport-vs-iphone-6-2/

http://www.cnet.com/products/blackberry-passport/

Recently, Apple revealed the record number of pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. 4 million newly released iPhone were sold in 24 hours, and the sales number topped 10 million in three days. We can say that it is a really impressive result for iPhone 6 because iPhone 5s and 5c just achieved 9 million units in three days. Tim Cook upholds the grace of the legendary brand, Apple, and makes new history.

Apple is not the only one choice in the smartphone market, but it must be the most popular one. It is so popular that Apple employees have to queue with regular buyers when the new models are released. Why iPhone can be so attractive to consumers?

From my point of view, Apple dominates the market because of three main factors. To begin with, humanization is one of the dominants. The screen will turn dark to save power when users pick up a phone call. People can take selfies by pushing side buttons. These techniques are very easy to realize for every smartphone company, however, only Apple did them. Also, Apple’s success can be attributed to its marketing strategy. Every Apple’s launch event was hold in a mini theatre, and Steve Jobs, or Tim Cook nowadays, reveals each and every product mysteriously instead of leaking them all on the Internet. Last but not least, everybody works at Apple Genius can passionately teach buyers to use all the functions, even the most basic ones.

Sources:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102020922

http://bgr.com/2014/09/15/iphone-6-plus-sold-out-status/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/iphone-apples-biggest-success/story?id=25510630

Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a publicly traded Hangzhou-based group of internet-based e-commerce businesses including business-to-business online web portals, online retails and payment services, a  shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. This company grew out of Jack Ma small apartment in Hangzhou back in 1999 into a multi-billion dollar company today.

On Monday, at the closing bell on Wall Street, the stock for Alibaba was trading just below ninety dollars, it left Alibaba’s market capitalization above two hundred and twenty billion dollars, which mean the market reckon for Alibaba is more valuable than Facebook or Amazon.Here comes some of my opinions.

Firstly, Alibaba IPO may benefit the scions of Chinese leaders, because the scions of them can gain profit from their shareholding. Besides, it can promote the economics development of China, people around the world may increase their purchasing power. Also the economics of America will be push forward, for there are over two hundreds of the company with shares listed in the United States, and sales lots of products to the United States.

Sources:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/alibabas-ipo-big-picture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group

Recently in china , fast food are more and more popular, many people like to choose KCF or  McDonalds for their lunch and dinner. However in 26th July 2014,  Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd which is the raw material supplier for these two big companies has been verified that it (Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd) supplying out of date meat to American fast food chains include KFC and McDonalds.

It said that Shanghai Husi change the packaging for the past due meat then make it looks like the new one, after that these meat was selling to the food company. After media exposure this information, people in China condemn Shanghai Husi as the company who lose ethics and responsibility. In my opinion,the social responsibility of business is really important, because it represent the company’s spirit. However product safety is unusually sensitive in China following scandals over the past decade in which infants, hospital patients and others have been killed or sickened by phony or adulterated milk powder, drugs and other goods. So these firms are run out of ethics, and this was really Irresponsible.

Sources:

http://indianexpress.com/article/world/neighbours/american-boss-of-shanghai-husi-food-co-apologises-in-china-meat-scandal/