国际英语新闻：Mainland top job assignment location in Asia, survey says

BEIJING, Feb. 25 -- The Chinese mainland has become the most favored job assignment destination in Asia for multinationals, according to a survey released by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) yesterday.

    Seventy-eight percent of all respondents from 112 companies selected the Chinese mainland as their key assignment location in Asia, followed by Singapore (43 percent) and Hong Kong (39 percent).

    Similar surveys conducted in the second half of 2008 for Singapore- and Hong Kong-based companies also confirmed the mainland's status as a top assignment location in Asia.

    The Hong Kong survey found that a large percentage of Hong Kong-based firms will continue to relocate employees to the mainland to take up middle management roles due to their global/regional exposure, familiarity with the Chinese culture and their Chinese language capability.

    The mainland "is still anticipated to grow as an assignment location, albeit at a slower rate due to the global economic downturn," said Rebecca Lai, director of PwC.

    Meanwhile, the participants in the latest survey, in which over 92 percent were multinational companies, confirmed the status of the Chinese mainland as a key investment target in Asia for multinationals because of the vast market potential and expectations of sustainable business growth.

    Shanghai, for instance, has attracted 180 foreign firms to set up regional headquarters in the city as of last July, according to the Shanghai Economic Commission.

    The city plans to make Shanghai home to 3,000 domestic listed and foreign firms by 2013.

    English First (EF), a language training school, transferred its regional headquarters from Hong Kong to Shanghai in 2007 in acknowledgement that the demand for English has grown tremendously and the mainland is now one of the company's largest English training markets.

    EF's move is consistent with PwC findings through the survey. But there is a clear indication from the respondents that there is a "lack of suitable skills in the local market" among foreign talents.

    As such, hiring Chinese nationals with overseas work experience and regional Chinese expatriates is a preferred option. "Foreign employees require higher salary packages, therefore, cost-performance is the driving force for multinationals to recruit more local people, " said Zhu Ning, marketing director of human resource provider Randstad.