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