This week China's Ministry of Commerce announced the elimination of tariffs on oil imports, to be replaced by a system of quotas and strict importer registration requirements. A Guangdong subsidiary of China Telecom got into the online games biz, bringing state telecoms into competition with private portals. Also online, IT's share of the expanding job placement market continues to climb. And in the scandal of the week, Sony had six digital camera models taken down from shelves in Zhejiang.

Tariffs on oils eliminated

China's messing around with the world oil markets again. Three kinds of vegetable oils - palm, soybean, and rapeseed - will have their import tariffs eliminated beginning 1 January. China's tariffs currently in place on grain, sugar, and cotton, will remain in effect.

Since the central goverment doesn't want just anyone to be importing the stuff now that it's tariff-free, the Ministry of Commerce has set up guidelines for companies seeking to import oils. There's a registered capital requirement (10 million yuan). An annual sales requirement (200 million yuan). A prior import requirement (30,000 tons over three years). And, for producers, a capacity requirement (200 tons processed per day, or 3000 tons palm oil consumed per year).

These and other scintillating regulations, laws, and notices from the Ministry of Commerce can be found in the authoritative International Business Daily, which claims a readership of 4 million on 380,000 circulating copies.

Telecom in the games biz

More addictive options for Chinese gamers - Guangdong Data Communication Network, a China Telecom company, is getting involved in the nation's lucrative online gaming business through the Korean game RFOnline. As a diversification bid, this move comes as part of a strategy GDCN launched at the beginning of the year.

Changing sectors isn't cheap, though - the licensing fees run US$4 million, and the company plans to spend 50 million yuan on operating the game. It does have an in-house design group, set up last year, which will bear fruit in mid-2006.

All about IT jobs

The IT sector in China is in an interesting predicament. Investment is rising to levels rivaling the golden years before the bust, and all sorts of new opportunities opening up. In online career placement, a 1.69 billion yuan industry in 2006, 30% of the total job market, IT jobs account for up to half of all listings on many sites. Talented professionals in areas like IPTV are the objects of bidding wars.

Unfortunately, talent is what is lacking in today's IT marketplace. Or rather, appropriate talent. There is no shortage of applicants for high-end jobs in many sectors, but it's the so-called "blue-collar IT" workers - the armies of programmers - that can't seem to attract any interest. Some numbers put the shortage of designers and developers in the game industry alone at 600,000 people, but what kind of choice is it when a top-flight designer makes just a little bit more than the game's marketing director?

Sony off the shelf

Sony, along with three other Japanese manufactures, saw their products fail a spot inspection this week. Sony's products were named; several models of digital cameras had image exposure and color balance issues that were considered relatively serious.

The other three manufacturers weren't named by the inspectors; all that was said was that the three were "similar in size to Canon and Panasonic." Canon stood by the quality of its products, as did Olympus. Sony expressed surprise, but said that it was working closely with the inspectors to resolve the matter. The incident doesn't seem to have kicked up much fuss beyond the usual chatter of the 抵制日货 folk.

Also in the news this week:

• The latest statistics show Chinese cotton production falling 13.8% to 5.45 million tons this year; China's annual imports from the US will be 3 million tons.
• Yahoo paid 30 million yuan to shoot three television commercials using three "famous directors."
• British retailer Tesco, #3 behind Wal-Mart and Carrefour, is moving into Beijing through its 50% stake in Hymart. With Hymart's first Beijing location opening next year in Chaoyang, the city's retail marketplace gets a bit more crowded.

These summaries were collected from the The China Perspective, which covers major business news and trends in the China marketplace.