Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Beijing Whirlwind



We just ended a very busy but insightful day. We began with the Deputy Minister of Education. China currently enrolls 300 million students in K-9 compulsory education - that's the size of the United States population. 130 million students are in elementary school. 25 million are enrolled in higher education. The teacher to student ratio is 1 to 21. They have over 2,000 universities. The most telling thing to me was the Minister's honesty about the government's shortfalls in education. What was even more telling was how similar their problems are to ours - teacher ratios, teaching technology, filling demand, the gap between rural and urban systems and limited resources. The most striking difference, however, was China's lack of "creativity" instruction.


We then traveled across town to Tsinghua University to visit with current MBA students. TU is essentially the Harvard of China. It's the number one program for engineering in China - and some believe the world. Four members of the governing polit bureau have degrees from TU. They educate 20,000 students each year and it is highly selective in admissions. I must say, it was fascinating to interact with those very bright students. They toured us through the campus and hosted us for a typical family style lunch which included fried shrimp heads and eel. Of note, it costs 290,000 yuan (divide by 8 to convert) to attend each year and the average salary of their graduates is 40,000 yuan per month. The highest paid positions right out of school are in sales and marketing. Most MBA programs graduate students that are highest paid in finance. I figure with 1.3 billion consumers in China, sales and marketing MBAs are finally in demand.



Our next trip took us to Peking University Hospital where we met with physicians, nurses and the Vice President of operations. PUH operates 1,183 beds and has 1,300 under construction. They service 7,000 people per day with 776 physicians and 1197 nurses. They are the official hospital of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Of note, they actually have a VIP ward - the very top floor of the surgical center. The rooms are twice as large, private and come equipped with flat screen TVs.



We then moved to a visit with Volvo Truck. Volvo had a fascinating story to tell commenting on the huge growth in highway construction recently. The government is trying very hard to push development into central mainland China, a portion of the country still lagging the east coast in development.


Finally, we wrapped up our day with a visit to CB Richard Ellis's Asia office with an address from the president of Asia for CBRE. Currently, in Beijing alone over 6 million square meters of office space will become available. Over half of the world's cranes are positioned in China to help facilitate the construction boom, not to mention the raw materials constraints like steel and concrete. China is currently consuming half of the world's concrete. Of note, we spotted the "Bird's Nest" stadium under construction. The "Bird's Nest" is the site of the 2008 Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. It will hold 90,000 spectators comfortably.

Stay tuned for more.

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