Looking back, the odds of success were not high, but my thirst for understanding this country was so strong that I used to hoover up every insight I could get from my business partner and childhood friend.

We set up two businesses: one a cross-border e-commerce business selling imported goods into China, the other a supply chain finance business providing advanced tax rebates to exporting manufacturers. I knew very little about either. Although the supply chain finance business did well, the e-commerce venture closed within six months, and it taught me a key lesson:

China’s market is big, but the competition is greater.

Over the last 10 years I have seen how innovative ideas get hijacked and markets flooded in the relentless race for share. For me it started with shared bikes — remember Ofo and Mobike? But now you see it in every corner of business: coffee shops, restaurants, cars and gadgets.

As someone lucky enough to have been born and raised in an economically developed country, the rat race on steroids from entrepreneurs who started with a lot less than me is fascinating to watch, but not something I could ever compete in, no matter how high my ambition. The competition is stronger than ever right now, which is why Chinese companies are looking to “go global” into less saturated markets.

Like most foreign businesses in China, I learnt to find the gaps. My time here can be split into a pre-Covid and a post-Covid era.

Pre-Covid was defined by learning and exploring. Living in Changsha, Shanghai and Beijing during those years, I tried many different businesses and initiatives, and worked with many different partners.

Beijing was a huge learning curve, and I was fortunate to be there at the height of the Belt and Road Initiative, working on projects to rebuild Iraq. I cannot stress enough how important living and experiencing life in Beijing is to understanding China, and I encourage more people to spend time there.

I stopped at nothing to gain experience and learn. I even found myself discussing the plight of Basra’s water challenges on Iraqi national television! The pale complexion on my face says it all.

Building relationships and collaborating with Chinese EPC firms taught me a great deal about China and about doing business here. One manager from a state-owned firm taught me something that still shapes our HR business today:

In the West, you have a project, so you search for the people. In China, there are a lot of people, so you search for the project.

China’s population is vast. The demographics are changing, of course, but everywhere I look I see construction, infrastructure projects and all manner of jobs. Is it simply the largest job creation scheme the world has ever seen?

All this learning — and supporting companies to work and do business in China — proved important training for one of the largest events in my life, and everyone’s: Covid-19.

My wife and I decided to remain in China. Many foreign business people had left for Chinese New Year, or in response to the initial scare of lockdown. Through that period of uncertainty and global crisis, I was able to support companies on the ground as they navigated supply chains that were becoming increasingly opaque. We supported businesses across every sector, from electronics, energy and medical equipment to clothing and furniture.

Although I had built a solid foundation for doing business in China, I realised it was not sustainable. In reality I was only scratching the surface of these industries, and I did not have the deep product or engineering capability to challenge suppliers when necessary.

So I decided to pivot: I could hire the people who did. That is how Kinyu SCM was founded — a supply chain company with people-focused solutions. We know enough to understand the challenges within our customers’ supply chains, and to build the right hiring strategy around them. We moved to Guangzhou to base our operations in one of China’s manufacturing heartlands.

Today we have seven offices, hire more than 50 strategic supply chain professionals across multiple industries, and manage over $170 million in trade each year while adding significant value for our customers. Relationships matter, but who you go into business with is a decision with lasting consequences for both your professional and personal life. People say it all comes down to trust — which brings me to another key lesson I have learnt in China:

Trust comes in two forms: trust in someone’s integrity, and trust in someone’s ability. For a successful business relationship, both must be present.

While my school friend brought me to Changsha, the biggest impact on my journey in China — and on my life — has of course been my incredible wife and business partner, Mia. We have made all the important decisions together, many of them life-changing. I am so grateful for all the support she has given me, and continues to give me, as we build our business and our family together.

Here’s to another 10 years.

The post Reflections on 10 Years in China appeared first on Kinyu.

Sany Heavy Industry, the world’s fourth-largest construction equipment manufacturer, is headquartered here. So is Zoomlion, its domestic rival and one of the world’s leading crane producers. A third major player, CRRC Zhuzhou, sits just 40 km away. Together with a dense supplier cluster, these companies have turned Hunan province into the source of more than 30% of China’s construction machinery output.

BYD, CATL, and a string of EV suppliers have opened facilities in recent years, building on an existing automotive base. The city’s universities — including Central South University and Hunan University, two of China’s leading engineering schools — give the talent pipeline a depth that many comparable cities cannot match.

Here’s a breakdown:

Quick Facts 

Who Should Consider Hiring in Changsha?

Changsha is a strong choice for companies in construction machinery, industrial equipment, new energy vehicles, and advanced manufacturing that need access to engineering talent at costs well below Shanghai or Shenzhen.

The city’s defining feature is its concentration of heavy industry alongside genuine engineering depth. Sany and Zoomlion alone employ tens of thousands of engineers, technicians, and production workers in Changsha, and their presence has created a deep pool of specialist suppliers and trained labour that companies in adjacent sectors can draw on.

The university cluster adds a distinctive advantage. Central South University and Hunan University are consistently ranked among China’s top engineering institutions, and between them they produce a steady pipeline of mechanical engineering, materials science, and computer science graduates who largely stay in the city.

Changsha is also China’s entertainment capital outside Beijing. Hunan Satellite Television — the country’s second most-watched channel — and its streaming arm Mango TV (200 million registered users) are both headquartered here, making the city a hub for media and content roles.

New energy is a growing draw. BYD operates a major plant in Changsha with an annual production capacity of 300,000 vehicles, part of a broader pattern of central China cities targeting over 1 million vehicles annually.

Changsha is less well suited for companies for sectors dependent on proximity to coastal ports or financial centres.

Key Employers

English Proficiency 

Changsha scores 511 on the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index — fourth highest among all Chinese cities tracked, behind only Hangzhou (515), Beijing (514) and Nanjing (512), and above Shanghai (508). Hunan province as a whole scores in the “moderate proficiency” band.

Salaries

Changsha uses a two-tier minimum wage structure within the municipality:

• Urban core districts (Yuelu, Furong, Tianxin, Kaifu, Yuhua, Wangcheng): 2,200 yuan/month, 22 yuan/hour
• County-level cities (Changsha County, Liuyang, Ningxiang): 2,000 yuan/month, 20 yuan/hour

According to the Changsha Statistics Bureau, the average annual wage for non-private sector employees in Changsha was 125,162 yuan in 2024 (approximately 10,430 yuan/month) — the most recent city-level figure available.

Hunan province as a whole recorded 102,468 yuan in 2025, with Changsha consistently running above the provincial average due to the concentration of state-linked engineering firms and heavy industry employers like Sany and Zoomlion.

Social Insurance

Social insurance is China’s mandatory employer-and-employee contribution system, covering pension, medical, maternity, work injury, and unemployment. Changsha follows Hunan province’s social insurance framework. How much you contribute depends on each employee’s salary, but there are floors and ceilings — you don’t pay on the full salary if it’s very low or very high.

According to the Hunan Human Resources and Social Security Bureau’s 2025 notice, contributions work as follows:

• If an employee earns less than 4,072 yuan/month — contributions are calculated as if they earn 4,072 yuan
• If an employee earns between 4,072 and 20,361 yuan/month — contributions are calculated on their actual salary
• If an employee earns more than 20,361 yuan/month — contributions are calculated as if they earn 20,361 yuan

Here’s how the contribution rates break down:

Housing Fund

The housing fund is a separate mandatory saving scheme on top of social insurance. Both the employer and employee contribute a percentage of the employee’s salary into a personal account the employee can eventually use toward housing costs.

Unlike social insurance, the rate isn’t fixed: each company chooses a single rate between 5% and 12%, and that rate applies equally to the employer contribution and the employee contribution.

The contribution is calculated on the employee’s actual salary, subject to a floor and ceiling (Changsha Housing Provident Fund Management Centre, 2025):

• If an employee earns less than 2,100 yuan/month — contributions are calculated on 2,100 yuan
• If an employee earns between 2,100 and 31,291 yuan/month — contributions are calculated on their actual salary
• If an employee earns more than 31,291 yuan/month — contributions are calculated on 31,291 yuan

To understand how these figures impact your company payroll cost, please use our salary calculator! 

Leave Policies

Changsha follows Hunan province’s leave framework. Hunan sits broadly in line with the national average:

Sick Leave

Sick leave entitlements depend on the employee’s length of service and supporting medical documentation. Sick-leave pay cannot be lower than 80% of Changsha’s applicable minimum wage.

High Temperature Subsidy

Changsha implements Hunan’s mandatory high temperature subsidy for employees working in hot conditions from June to September.

• Employers must pay the subsidy when employees work outdoors at temperatures of 35 C or above, or indoors in workplaces that cannot be cooled below 33 C
• The subsidy is 300 yuan per month (June–September), paid in cash
• Cooling drinks, food, or other in-kind provisions cannot substitute for the cash payment

Changsha summers are hot and notoriously humid, with temperatures regularly above 35 C from late June through August. Build these triggers into summer planning for logistics, construction, and outdoor service roles.

Ready to Hire in Changsha?

Ready to hire in Changsha without setting up a local entity? Talk to us about our China-focused EOR service and start onboarding talent in weeks.

The post Hiring in Changsha: Labour Laws, Salaries and Best Practices appeared first on Kinyu.

Add in a long-standing SCO Demonstration Zone for trade with Central Asia and a deep bench of Korean and Japanese manufacturing investment, and Qingdao stands out as one of northern China’s most internationally connected cities.

For employers, that means access to a genuinely diverse talent pool at a cost base that remains among the lowest of any coastal Chinese city. Here’s what you need to know before hiring.

Quick Facts 

Who Should Consider Hiring in Qingdao?

Qingdao suits companies in marine engineering and shipping, home appliances and electronics manufacturing, automotive components and biopharmaceuticals. It’s also a natural base for firms trading with South Korea, Japan or Central Asia, thanks to its ferry links, tax-treaty benefits and dedicated cross-border settlement infrastructure. Its universities and research institutes make it a strong option for R&D functions tied to marine science and materials.

Talent Profile

Qingdao’s workforce reflects its industrial mix: heavy manufacturing and appliance production sit alongside marine science, port logistics and a growing services sector. The city’s universities, including Ocean University of China and China University of Petroleum, feed a steady pipeline of engineering and technical graduates.

English Proficiency 

Shandong scores in the “moderate” band on the EF English Proficiency Index, scoring 497 — behind only Hong Kong, Zhejiang and Jiangxi. EF doesn’t break this down to city level, so there’s no Qingdao-specific score, but the provincial figure suggests English isn’t as weak a spot for the region as its industrial reputation might imply.

Bilingual proficiency is common in Qingdao, though it skews toward Japanese and Korean rather than English, a legacy of the city’s deep manufacturing and trade ties with both markets. So while general language skills are strong, employers hiring specifically for English-language roles should still expect a smaller pool than in other cities like Shanghai, and may need to pay a premium accordingly.

Salaries

Shandong’s minimum wage is set on a tiered basis. Qingdao’s urban core — Shinan, Shibei, Huangdao (West Coast New Area), Laoshan, Licang, Chengyang and Jimo districts — sits in the province’s top wage tier at 2,400 yuan per month (around $330) as of 2026, while the outlying county-level cities of Jiaozhou, Pingdu and Laixi sit one tier lower, at 2,210 yuan per month. This puts Qingdao’s core districts ahead of most inland Shandong cities but below the minimum wage rates seen in Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen.

In practice, wages for skilled manufacturing and engineering roles run well above the statutory floor, particularly around Qingdao’s West Coast New Area and Chengyang district, where competition for talent from Haier, Hisense and their supply chains keeps pay competitive.

Social Insurance

Qingdao sets its own social insurance contribution bases within Shandong’s provincial framework. The contribution base (the salary figure used to calculate contributions) is bounded by a floor and ceiling that are updated annually, based on the prior year’s average local wage.

Example: 

• Qingdao’s monthly contribution base for 2025/26 runs from a floor of 4,504 yuan to a ceiling of 22,518 yuan per month — one of the lowest ceilings of any major coastal Chinese city.
• A senior engineer earning 40,000 yuan per month has social insurance calculated on the first 22,518 yuan only; the remainder attracts income tax but no further social insurance contribution.

Here’s how the contribution rates break down:

Combined, employer social insurance and housing fund costs in Qingdao typically run to roughly 33–45% of gross salary, depending on industry risk category and the housing fund rate a company selects. Qingdao’s pension contribution rate in particular runs higher than many other coastal cities, so it’s worth budgeting for the top of this range rather than the bottom.

Housing Fund

Both employers and employees contribute to the housing fund in Qingdao, typically at a matched rate of between 5% and 12%, with each company selecting one rate to apply uniformly across its workforce. The contribution base is bounded by a local floor and ceiling, adjusted annually alongside the wider social insurance figures.

To understand how these figures impact your company payroll cost, please use our salary calculator! 

Leave Policies

Qingdao follows Shandong’s provincial leave rules, set under the Shandong Population and Family Planning Regulations.

Note for employers: Shandong’s 158-day maternity entitlement, like Guangdong’s, splits into two funding streams — the 98-day basic period is covered by maternity insurance, while the 60-day reward period is generally paid by the employer. With marriage and paternity leave both now well above the national baseline, factor the increased entitlement into team and budget planning.

Sick Leave

Sick leave entitlements entitlements depend on the employee’s length of service and medical documentation. Sick-leave pay cannot be lower than 80% of Qingdao’s local minimum wage.

High Temperature Subsidy

Shandong operates a mandatory high temperature subsidy that applies in Qingdao. Employers must pay it to employees who work in high-temperature conditions between June and September.

• The subsidy is typically paid monthly, at a rate set by the provincial government and reviewed periodically.
• It must be paid in cash and cannot be substituted with cooling drinks or other supplies.
• The subsidy is in addition to the employee’s normal wage and cannot be counted as part of the minimum wage.

Qingdao’s coastal climate is milder than inland Shandong, but summer heat still affects outdoor roles in shipping, construction, and logistics. This is a real compliance point for any employer with staff working outside or in non-air-conditioned facilities.

Ready to Hire in Qingdao?

Ready to hire in Qingdao without setting up a local entity? Talk to us about our China-focused EOR service and start onboarding talent in weeks.

The post Hiring in Qingdao: Labour Laws, Salaries and Best Practices appeared first on Kinyu.

The good news is, once you break it down, it’s perfectly manageable. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how the system actually works, the tax rates in China you’ll pay, how the Chinese mainland compares with Hong Kong, and what it all means for foreign businesses.

How Does China’s Taxation System Work?

In China, the national government sets tax rules, while local governments collect them. The State Taxation Administration (China’s equivalent of HMRC) oversees the system, while local tax bureaus handle the day-to-day admin: registrations, filings and collection. So while the headline rules are mostly the same everywhere, how they’re applied can vary slightly from city to city.

The taxes themselves fall into three broad buckets:

Your obligations depend on your residency, your entity type (WFOE, joint venture, representative office) and what your business does.

Business-Relevant Tax Categories

Of the 18 or so taxes China levies, most businesses only ever deal with a handful:

• Corporate Income Tax (CIT) is the big one. This is tax on your company’s profits, and every registered business in China pays it.
• Value Added Tax (VAT) is charged on sales of goods and services, much like U.K. VAT.
• Individual Income Tax (IIT) isn’t a company tax as such, but if you employ staff (or pay yourself a salary), you’ll be withholding this from wages every month.

Beyond those, there are situational taxes you may bump into depending on what you do: stamp duty on certain contracts, consumption tax on specific goods, customs duties if you import, and local surcharges that piggyback on your VAT bill.

What Are the Tax Rates in China?

Corporate Income Tax Rates

China’s Corporate Income Tax is 25%. But many businesses pay far less:

• Small and low-profit enterprises pay an effective rate of just 5% on annual taxable income up to 3 million yuan (roughly £330,000), under a preferential policy running to the end of 2027.
• Qualifying high-tech enterprises pay a reduced 15% rate, though you’ll need official certification, and it has to be renewed.

Vat Bands

VAT in China is charged at different rates depending on what’s being sold, not who’s selling it, so a single business offering both goods and services may need to apply more than one rate across its own invoicing. Many exports are zero-rated, which is a meaningful benefit for foreign businesses using China as a manufacturing or sourcing base to sell onward internationally.

Worth knowing: If your annual sales are under 5 million yuan, you’re likely a small-scale taxpayer rather than a general one. Small-scale taxpayers pay a flat simplified rate of 3% on turnover instead, with no input VAT deduction.

Individual Income Tax

China’s system is progressive: the more you earn, the higher the band, across seven brackets. It’s technically the employee’s tax bill, not the company’s, but as the employer you’re responsible for withholding it from wages each month and paying it over to the tax authorities.

The Differences Between China and Hong Kong’s Tax Systems

The Chinese mainland and Hong Kong run completely separate tax systems. Hong Kong’s system is generally simpler and lighter. That doesn’t automatically make it the right choice; where you should base yourself depends on where your customers, staff and operations actually are. But it’s a comparison worth understanding before you commit. Here’s how they differ.

Fewer Categories

Hong Kong simply levies fewer types of tax. Several of the mainland’s staples don’t exist there at all. Most notably, there’s no VAT (or any sales tax) and no capital gains tax.

What does that mean in practice? Less compliance. Fewer registrations, fewer filings, fewer invoices to manage.

Simpler Rates

Hong Kong’s rate structure is also more straightforward. Its profits tax (the equivalent of corporate income tax) uses a simple two-tiered system: 8.25% on the first 2 million Hong Kong dollars of profits, and 16.5% on everything above. Compare that with the mainland’s standard 25% rate plus a patchwork of preferential rates, certifications and time-limited incentives.

On the mainland, the rates can be lower if you qualify, but working out whether you do takes more effort.

Worth knowing: If you have cross-border revenue, or export goods from the Chinese mainland, where your profit is “sourced” can change your tax bill significantly. Get professional advice before assuming either way.

Chinese Taxes on Foreign Businesses

If you set up a foreign-invested enterprise (a Chinese company with overseas owners), it’s treated as a Chinese tax resident, so it pays CIT on worldwide profits just like a local firm. If you don’t set up locally but still earn money from China, watch out for permanent establishment rules: enough activity on the ground, and China can tax you anyway.

Then there’s withholding tax. When money leaves China as dividends, royalties or interest, the Chinese payer must “withhold” 10% and hand it to the tax authorities before the rest reaches you.

Double taxation agreements: China has treaties with over 100 countries, including the U.K., that can cut withholding rates (often to 5% on dividends) and stop you being taxed twice on the same income.

Chinese Taxation Support from Kinyu

If you’ve made it this far, you’ll have gathered that China’s tax system is navigable, but not something to wing. Rates, incentives and filing rules change regularly, they’re applied locally, and the penalties for getting it wrong are unforgiving.

That’s where Kinyu’s China Desk comes in. We help foreign businesses of every size get set up and stay compliant, including:

• Payroll solutions to handle IIT withholding, social insurance and monthly filings for your China-based staff.
• Employer of Record services so you can hire in China without setting up an entity, while we take on the compliance burden.
• Tax and compliance guidance, from choosing the right structure to claiming treaty benefits, in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong alike.

Ready to make your China operation simple? Get in touch with the Kinyu team and we’ll help you work out exactly what you owe, where and how to keep it as painless as possible.

The post Guide to China’s Taxation System appeared first on Kinyu.

“I don’t think there was a lot of tangibles that people could really base decisions on. So they’re just moving on now,” Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of The China-Global South Project, told the Sinica Podcast last month. The Atlantic Council’s verdict was blunter: “It was a big show — with little to show for it.”

When Trump threatened a separate 10%-12.5% tariff on dozens of countries, including Chinese imports, over forced labour practices last week, it seemed to confirm the cynics. Yet one item from the summit has actually moved forward. And it may be consequential for Chinese suppliers.

US-China Board of Trade

On June 5, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative published a notice in the Federal Register opening a public comment period on the newly established U.S.-China Board of Trade. Comments are due July 10, with rebuttals accepted until July 27.

The mechanism, agreed by Trump and Xi as part of the Beijing summit package, was described by the White House as the “cornerstone” of the bilateral economic agreement. The idea is simple. Under it, both sides will identify $30-$50 billion worth of the other’s goods that both governments will agree not to tariff.

Total U.S.-China goods trade came to $414.7 billion in 2025, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. So each side’s basket of $30 billion represents roughly 7% of the total relationship — or about 14-15% combined. It is, by any measure, a narrow corridor. Though observers estimate this would just be a start.

“The non-sensitive basket is just such a small part now of our overall trade with China. So maybe this Board of Trade, maybe it starts with that and expands in the future,” said Wendy Cutler, a former USTR negotiator who heads the Asia Society Policy Center in Washington, as quoted by Reuters.

So What Goes in the Basket?

Yet, no matter how small, the significance of that corridor depends entirely on what goes in it. For instance, $30 billion in soybeans is not the same as $30 billion in semiconductors.

“We think the Chinese side will focus those reductions on U.S. agricultural products,” said Even Rogers Pay, a director at Trivium China, told Reuters. “The $17 billion purchase agreement and 25 million metric tons soybean deal, together, would roughly total out to just over $30 billion.”

That would mean the Board of Trade, at least from Beijing’s side, is essentially an agricultural trade mechanism. And a political win for Trump’s farm state base.

On the American side, testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on June 3, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered an indication of what the Washington’s non-sensitive basket might contain.

“What are $30 billion of things in non-critical industries, non-critical things — fireworks, Halloween costumes, very low-end consumer items that we do not want to reshore, that we want to buy from them,” he said. “And what are things that they would like to buy from us — the seafood, maybe energy — and then we will both agree that that basket on either side will have no tariffs.”

Bessent has repeatedly mentioned energy as a likely component of what China might buy from the U.S., though plastic skeletons for liquefied natural gas seems unlikely to be the deal Beijing had in mind.

Bessent’s examples may have been chosen for their political optics, but the category of low-end consumer items he is describing is considerably broader. Section 301 List 4A — the USTR’s existing tariff schedule covering consumer goods and apparel at 7.5% — is the natural hunting ground for a non-sensitive designation. Products on that list include smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones, bed linens, multifunction printers and footwear: goods for which a national security argument is difficult to sustain.

An Awkward Win for ‘America First’

The economic consequences of all this would be relatively modest. But imagine the U.S. carves out consumer goods and China reciprocates with agricultural products. What would that actually mean in practice?

Coface, the French credit insurer, noted in November 2025 that tariff reductions could nudge Chinese exports of textiles, toys and low-margin goods back toward the U.S. market.

For China’s small export manufacturers — who bore the sharpest edge of the tariff war — a tariff carve-out for low-end consumer goods would be welcome news. For businesses sourcing from China but selling outside the U.S., the indirect effect may be that a stabilized U.S. export lane reduces the pressure on Chinese suppliers to discount aggressively into other markets.

But there is an awkward political optic here. As recently as October 2025, White House spokesperson Kush Desai was telling reporters — ironically in response to questions about the rising cost of Halloween costumes — that cheap Chinese imports were the antithesis of the Trump economic vision: “Real prosperity is good jobs, booming industry, and thriving communities for everyday Americans — not cheap Chinese imports.”

So, the biggest winner from the Board of Trade may be that very import-driven retail model that fueled so much of MAGA’s political energy in the first place. Trump, however, is no policy purist. A functioning Board of Trade, with a product list attached, would give him something concrete to show when Xi arrives in Washington for a state visit on Sept. 24. A deal is a deal.

The post Has Anything Actually Come of the US-China Summit? appeared first on Kinyu.

This guide walks you through what a GM actually costs in China, whether your business is at the stage where that cost makes sense, and what to do if it doesn’t.

How Much Is a General Manager Paid in China?

Compensation at the general manager level varies considerably depending on the size and complexity of the business, the sector, and the location. According to SalaryExpert, the average general manager salary in China sits at approximately 1.85 million yuan per year. That figure, however, is skewed upward by large multinationals and complex operations.

A more realistic range for a mid-market business hiring a local GM for a sourcing or manufacturing operation is between 300,000 yuan and 500,000 yuan annually. For locally hired managers at medium-complexity operations in second- and third-tier cities, packages at the lower end of that range are common.

Where you’re hiring also matters. Shanghai and Beijing command a 10-20% premium over equivalent roles in tier-2 cities like Chengdu or Qingdao. A GM in Shenzhen costs more than one doing the same job in Changsha. Kinyu’s Salary Calculator can help you work out the full employment cost for a specific location, including the statutory contributions that sit on top of any headline salary figure.

Expat Salary Expectations

If you’re thinking about bringing in someone from overseas, the cost conversation changes significantly. Expat packages at GM level typically include executive housing, international school fees for dependants, tax equalisation provisions and annual flights home.

That said, the era of the full legacy expat package — housing, club membership, school fees, the lot — is largely over. Most businesses now offer a higher base with fewer non-cash add-ons, which brings the structure closer to a competitive local hire.

And local hires have genuinely caught up. The pool of bilingual Chinese managers with international business experience and deep local networks has grown substantially over the past decade. For many foreign businesses, a strong local hire now delivers comparable capability to an expat, at meaningfully lower total cost, and with far less administrative overhead.

Future Salary Expectations

GM salaries in China are on the way up. ERI projects around 18 percent growth over the next five years at this level. The steepest rises will be in sectors dealing with supply chain reconfiguration, advanced manufacturing, and technology — where the competition for capable senior managers is already intense.

Currency note: The RMB–USD exchange rate held in a 7.20-7.30 yuan band through most of 2025–2026. Significant moves in either direction could shift the dollar cost of a Chinese hire by 5-8%. Businesses budgeting in sterling or euros face additional exposure on top of that.

Businesses competing for capable general managers are increasingly expected to offer equity participation, profit-sharing, or performance bonuses tied to commercial outcomes. Candidates at this level treat fixed pay as a floor, not a ceiling, and packages that do not include a meaningful variable component will struggle to attract the stronger end of the market.

Should You Hire a General Manager in China?

The answer looks very different depending on where your business is.

Alternatives to Hiring a General Manager

A managed sourcing office gives you a local presence in China, with people on the ground handling vendor management, logistics, and quality control as part of a structured service arrangement. You get the capability without the recruitment process, the employment contract, or a senior salary sitting permanently on your cost base. Take a look at Kinyu’s sourcing office model if that fits where you are.

Alternatively, ongoing supply chain management and advisory services provide strategic oversight, supplier monitoring, and project management on a flexible basis — covering the functions a GM would typically own, but scaled to what you actually need. If your requirement is periodic senior input rather than a permanent executive, this structure will almost always deliver better value.

How Kinyu Can Help

Kinyu works with overseas businesses across the Chinese mainland, providing sourcing, supply chain management and employment solutions that do the job of a general manager — without the full-time cost.

Whether you’re not yet at the scale where an in-house hire makes sense, or you’re ready to hire directly and need the employment infrastructure to do it compliantly, get in touch and we’ll talk through what makes sense for where you are.

The post General Manager Salaries in China appeared first on Kinyu.

For employers, Dongguan offers deep, advanced manufacturing capability inside the Greater Bay Area, at costs below neighbouring Shenzhen, with the talent and supplier ecosystem to match. Here’s what you need to know before hiring.

Quick Facts 

Who Should Consider Hiring in Dongguan?

Dongguan is best suited to companies in electronics and smart device manufacturing, advanced and precision equipment, robotics and automation, and traditional consumer goods sectors such as furniture, toys, textiles and footwear. It also appeals to firms seeking an R&D or engineering presence connected to Shenzhen’s innovation ecosystem without the city’s higher cost base.

Talent Profile

Dongguan’s workforce is built for manufacturing. The city’s permanent population of over 10 million is overwhelmingly made up of migrant workers, giving employers access to a large and flexible labour pool for production roles. At the higher end, Dongguan has worked hard to attract engineering and technical talent, particularly around the Songshan Lake area.

English Proficiency 

Guangdong scores in the “moderate” band on the EF English Proficiency Index, stronger than most inland provinces, helped by the province’s long export-trade history and proximity to Hong Kong. Within Guangdong, however, Dongguan’s English-speaking talent pool is shallower than Guangzhou’s or Shenzhen’s, reflecting its manufacturing rather than corporate-services base. Expect to pay a premium for genuinely bilingual hires and to plan translation support for most internal communications.

Salaries

The minimum wage rose to 2,080 yuan per month (around $288) on 1 March 2025, with a part-time hourly rate of 19.8 yuan ($2.74). Dongguan sits in Guangdong’s Category 2 bracket — the same tier as Foshan, Zhuhai and Zhongshan, and below the Category 1 rates that apply in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

In practice, manufacturing wages in Dongguan run well above the statutory floor, particularly for skilled and engineering roles around the Songshan Lake electronics cluster, where employers compete directly with Shenzhen for talent.

Social Insurance

Dongguan sets its own social insurance contribution bases and rates within the Guangdong provincial framework. The contribution base (the salary figure used to calculate contributions) is bounded by floor and ceiling values updated annually.

Example: 

• If you hire someone at 6,000 yuan per month, their pension contribution is calculated on their full 6,000 yuan salary.
• However, if you hire someone at 35,000 yuan per month, their pension contribution is calculated as if they earn 27,501 yuan (the maximum base).

Here’s how the contribution rates break down:

Housing Fund

Both employers and employees contribute to the housing fund in Dongguan. The contribution rate is set between 5% and 12%, with both parties using the same rate. Each company chooses one rate, applied uniformly across all employees. The contribution base is bounded by a local floor (linked to the minimum wage) and a ceiling (linked to local average wage data), and is adjusted annually.

To understand how these figures impact your company payroll cost, please use our salary calculator! 

Leave Policies

Dongguan follows Guangdong’s provincial leave rules, set principally by the Guangdong Population and Family Planning Regulations.

Note for employers: Guangdong’s 178-day maternity entitlement splits into two funding streams — the 98-day basic period is covered by maternity insurance, while the 80-day reward period is generally paid by the employer. Factor this into team and budget planning.

Sick Leave

Sick leave entitlements depend on the employee’s length of service and medical documentation. Sick-leave pay cannot be lower than 80% of Dongguan’s local minimum wage.

High Temperature Subsidy

Guangdong operates a mandatory high temperature subsidy that applies in Dongguan. Employers must pay it to employees who work in high-temperature conditions during the hot months.

• The Guangdong subsidy is 300 yuan per month, payable across the June-to-October period for employees exposed to high-temperature work.
• It must be paid in cash and cannot be substituted with cooling drinks or other supplies.
• The subsidy is in addition to the employee’s normal wage and cannot be counted as part of the minimum wage.

Given Dongguan’s hot, humid subtropical summers, this is a real consideration for any employer with outdoor or non-air-conditioned operations, including construction, logistics yards, and certain factory environments.

Ready to Hire in Dongguan?

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The post Hiring in Dongguan: Labour Laws, Salaries and Best Practices appeared first on Kinyu.

Yiwu is a trading city first and a manufacturing city second. Its workforce skews towards sales, sourcing, logistics, cross-border e-commerce and international trade services. It also has one of the most genuinely international street-level business cultures in China, with thousands of long-term foreign resident traders.

Here’s what you need to know before hiring.

Quick Facts 

Who Should Consider Hiring in Yiwu?

Yiwu works best for companies in international trade, sourcing and procurement, cross-border e-commerce, logistics and freight forwarding, and light-consumer-goods sales. If your business involves buying, branding or shipping small commodities (jewellery, toys, stationery, gifts, accessories, hardware, homeware, seasonal goods) Yiwu is arguably the single most efficient place in the world to base that operation.

The city’s commercial gravity comes from the Yiwu International Trade City, a wholesale complex of 75,000-plus booths trading millions of product lines. Around it has grown a dense ecosystem of trading companies, sourcing agents, logistics providers, quality-inspection firms and e-commerce operators. Major domestic and international e-commerce platforms run regional service centres and warehouses in the city.

What Yiwu is not is a heavy-manufacturing or high-tech base. Many of the “factories” associated with Yiwu are actually trading companies, or sales offices for plants located elsewhere in Zhejiang. If you need precision engineering, large-scale electronics assembly or a deep technical-graduate pool, this isn’t the city for it.

Talent Profile

Yiwu’s talent pool is shaped by trade rather than industry. Its standout characteristic is language capability: because the market serves buyers from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Europe, the city has an unusually deep bench of multilingual sales and trade staff, including Arabic, Spanish, Russian and other languages rarely found at scale elsewhere in China.

English Proficiency 

Zhejiang scores 506 on the EF English Proficiency Index, placing it just below Hong Kong (538) and among the stronger-performing regions in China — nearby Hangzhou is the country’s top-scoring city. EF doesn’t track Yiwu specifically. However, because the market serves buyers from the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Europe, the city has an unusually deep bench of multilingual sales and trade staff, including Arabic, Spanish, Russian and other languages seldom found at scale elsewhere in China.

Salaries

The minimum wage is 2,660 yuan per month ($368) and 25 yuan per hour ($3.46) for part-time work, effective from 1 January 2026.

The city recorded urban per-capita disposable income of 97,170 yuan in 2024, the highest of any county-level city in China, and a figure that exceeds all four tier-one cities. This reflects a population with a high share of business owners, traders and commission-earning sales staff rather than a conventional salaried wage profile

Social Insurance

Yiwu follows Zhejiang’s provincial social insurance framework. The contribution base (the salary figure used to calculate contributions) is bounded by floor and ceiling values (currently 4,986 – 25,299 yuan) set by the province and updated annually.

Example: 

• If you hire someone at 8,000 yuan per month, their pension contribution is calculated on their full salary. However, if you hire someone at 30,000 yuan per month, their pension contribution is calculated as if they earn 25,299 yuan (the maximum base).

Here’s how the contribution rates break down:

Housing Fund

Both employers and employees contribute to the housing fund in Yiwu. The contribution rate is set between 5% and 12%, with both parties using the same rate. Each company chooses one rate, applied uniformly across all employees. The contribution base is bounded by a local floor (linked to the minimum wage) and a ceiling (linked to three times the local average wage), and is adjusted annually.

To understand how these figures impact your company payroll cost, please use our salary calculator! 

Leave Policies

Yiwu follows Zhejiang’s provincial leave rules.

Sick Leave

Sick leave entitlements depend on the employee’s length of service and medical documentation. Sick-leave pay cannot be lower than 80% of Yiwu’s local minimum wage.

The post Hiring in Yiwu: Labour Laws, Salaries and Best Practices appeared first on Kinyu.

None of the 50 firms surveyed plan to exit.

The report, produced with support from the U.K. Department for Business and Trade and Kinyu, found that geopolitical tensions and policy uncertainty ranked as the top source of disruption, cited by 52% of respondents. Tariffs and trade restrictions followed at 50%.

But the survey suggests the damage comes less from the tariffs themselves than from their unpredictability. Nearly half of respondents — 46% — said uncertainty about future policy was the single biggest barrier to building supply chain resilience.

“We can absorb a tariff. What we cannot absorb is not knowing whether it will still be there next month,” one senior logistics executive said at a roundtable in Guangzhou.

Benjamin King, CEO of Kinyu and chair of the BritCham South China Supply Chain Working Group, said the findings reflect a business community that is adapting rather than retreating. “China’s role in global supply chains remains structural,” he noted, pointing to the report’s finding that more than half of respondents primarily rely on China for sourcing. Of those that have diversified to Southeast Asia, several reported costs 10–15% higher and continued dependency on Chinese raw materials upstream.

One in four firms reported making no supply chain adjustments in the past 12 months. The most common response among those that did act was increased monitoring of geopolitical risk, cited by 32%.

The report also found that net zero commitments are increasingly tied to supply chain operations. Roughly 85% of carbon emissions for global supply chain firms sit in Scope 3 — embedded in purchasing, supplier operations and logistics. No Chinese company has yet certified through BSI’s net zero pathway standard.

The findings draw on the survey of 50 firms, three roundtable discussions with over 60 supply chain leaders across Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai, facility visits, and a Net Zero Conference held in Guangzhou on March 10, 2026.

The post BritCham South China Releases Supply Chain Resilience Report appeared first on Kinyu.

The charge targets a specific business model, one where individual orders bypass traditional bulk shipping and go straight from a Chinese warehouse to someone’s door. But that model has grown so large, so profitable, and so deeply embedded in global logistics infrastructure that a customs charge is unlikely to stop it.

Shein and Temu popularised the approach. They were among the first to recognise that shipping individual orders directly to consumers was often cheaper than the traditional model of buying inventory in bulk, shipping it to a European warehouse, and distributing it from there. The savings come from keeping stock in China until the moment of sale, avoiding the costs and risks of holding inventory abroad.

Since then, the model has spawned an entire ecosystem of 3PL businesses offering services that simply did not exist before. EcomFlow, for example, lets a merchant in London list and sell products online while EcomFlow handles storage and delivery from a warehouse in China. The merchant is, in effect, a storefront. The warehousing, the logistics, and the customs liability are handled by EcomFlow. For the merchant, the practical effect is the ability to source and sell from China without needing any physical presence in the market they’re selling into.

Hundreds of operators now offer variations of the same service. China’s cross-border e-commerce trade reached 2.75 trillion yuan in 2025, up 15.5% from the year before, according to Chinese customs data.

For years, commentators assumed the model only worked because of de minimis exemptions, the threshold below which imported goods attract no customs duty. But while the exemption helped in the early stages, the underlying cost structure has since matured. Removing a tax benefit changes the margin. It does not change the arithmetic.

For small commodity manufacturers in the EU, it would no doubt be reassuring to believe otherwise. But the ability to source and sell directly from China is not really about tax advantages in many cases. For a growing number of buyers, it is simply the most economically rational way to trade.

One reason the model is so hard to displace is that storing goods in China is often cheaper than in Birmingham or Rotterdam, and fulfilling from origin ties up less capital in unsold inventory. Goods only move once an order is placed.

Getting goods to customers in Europe or the U.S. has also become faster and, in some cases, cheaper than a decade ago, helped by stronger air-cargo capacity. China’s air cargo throughput reached 21.9 million tonnes in 2025, up 9% year on year, and IATA recorded 2025 as a record year for global air cargo volume. For merchants, that infrastructure makes global scaling possible in a way it simply was not before.

Underpinning all of it is China’s manufacturing base. No other country has factories producing such a wide range of goods, clustered so closely together, with the ports, warehouses and freight networks already in place to ship them anywhere in the world within days.

Businesses outside of traditional e-commerce are now adopting similar models. Bloom Build, for instance, takes orders from individuals renovating their own homes for construction components and fulfills them directly from Chinese partners, without ever holding stock in Australia. In the coming years, similar providers are likely to emerge across a wide range of sectors.

Beijing has also been supportive of the model. In May 2024, Xi Jinping called for the accelerated development of new models such as cross-border e-commerce. Multiple ministries have since coordinated preferential tax treatment and eased administrative requirements for the sector, while state-backed industrial parks have sprung up offering sellers subsidised space and tailored tax support.

None of that is to say that buyers should abandon their China operations and outsource everything to a modern 3PL. Sourcing from China has always required supplier relationships and on-the-ground management, and that remains true here. What this model changes is not that reality, but where the logistics infrastructure needs to sit.

What companies like EcomFlow and Bloom Build are selling, at their core, is China’s supply chain capability. The ability to source from the world’s most competitive manufacturing base, store goods at low cost, and deliver them anywhere within days, without building any of that infrastructure yourself. And that’s likely worth far more than a 3 euro duty.

The post Why Selling Direct from China Keeps Growing appeared first on Kinyu.