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BREAKING! China’s Richest Man to Retire & Who Will Be Successor?

Jack Ma will hand over the keys of Asia’s most valuable company to Alibaba Group Holding’s chief executive officer, in an unprecedented succession plan that will slowly take the focus off one of China’s most recognisable corporate names over the next 12 months.

BREAKING! China's Richest Man to Retire & Who Will Be Successor?

Image | Weibo@阿里巴巴

Current Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang will replace him as chairman, while Ma will complete his current term on Alibaba’s board of directors following the company’s annual general meeting of stockholders in 2020.

I also want to return to education, which excites me with so much blessing because this is what I love to do.

Jack ma’s new business card

Image | Weibo@阿里巴巴

CNBC has translated Jack ma’s letter into English. Let’s take a look at the full text of the letter.

(Slide to read)

Dear Alibaba customers, Aliren, and shareholders,

Today, as we mark the 19th anniversary of Alibaba, I am excited to share some news with you: with the approval of our board of directors, one year from today on September 10, 2019 which also falls on Alibaba’s 20th anniversary, Group CEO Daniel Zhang will succeed me as chairman of the board of Alibaba Group. While remaining as executive chairman in the next 12 months, I will work closely with Daniel to ensure a smooth and successful transition. Thereafter, I will stay on the Alibaba board of directors until our annual shareholders meeting in 2020.

I have put a lot of thought and preparation into this succession plan for ten years. I am delighted to announce the plan today thanks to the support of the Alibaba Partnership and our board of directors. I also want to offer special thanks to all Alibaba colleagues and your families, because your trust, support and our joint enterprise over the past 19 years have prepared us for this day with confidence and strength.

This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up to the next level of corporate governance from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on systems of organizational excellence and a culture of talent development.

When Alibaba was founded in 1999, our goal was to build a company that could make China and the world proud and one that could last 102 years. However, we all knew that no one could stay with the company for 102 years. A sustainable Alibaba would have to be built on sound governance, culture-centric philosophy, and consistency in developing talent. No company can rely solely on its founders. Of all people, I should know that. Because of physical limits on one’s ability and energy, no one can shoulder the responsibilities of chairman and CEO forever.

We asked ourselves this question 10 years ago – how could Alibaba achieve sustainable growth after Jack Ma leaves the company? We believed the only way to solve the problem of corporate leadership succession was to develop a system of governance based on a unique culture and mechanisms for developing consistent talent and successors. For the last 10 years, we kept working on these ingredients.

Having been trained as a teacher, I feel extremely proud of what I have achieved. Teachers always want their students to exceed them, so the responsible thing to do for me and the company to do is to let younger, more talented people take over in leadership roles so that they inherit our mission “to make it easy to do business anywhere.”

Carrying out this mission in order to help small businesses, young people and women around the world is my passion. This is not only our intent from day one but I feel blessed to have this opportunity. To realize the dream behind this mission requires participation by a lot more people than just Jack Ma and persistent effort by generations of Aliren.

Alibaba is amazing not because of our business or scale or accomplishments. The best thing about Alibaba is that we come together under a common mission and vision. Our partnership system, unique culture and talented team have laid a strong foundation for the legacy of our company. In fact, since I handed over the CEO’s responsibilities in 2013, the company has run smoothly for five years on the back of these institutional ingredients.

The partnership system we developed is a creative solution to good governance and sustainability, as it overcomes several challenges faced by companies of scale: continuous innovation, leadership succession, accountability and cultural continuity.

Over the years, in iterating our management model, we have experimented with and improved on the right balance between systems and individuals. Simply relying on individuals or blindly following a system will not solve our problems. To achieve long-term sustainable growth, you need the right balance among system, people and culture.

I have full confidence that our partnership system and efforts to safeguard our culture will in time win over the love and support from customers, employees and shareholders.

Since the founding of the company in 1999, we have been of the view that Alibaba’s future will need to depend on “droves of talent” to enable us to iterate on our management succession plans. After years of hard work, today’s Alibaba has a world-class talent pool in quality and quantity.

The teacher in me feels extremely proud of our team, our leadership and our unique mission-driven culture, as well as the fact that we continue to develop exceptional business leaders and professional talent like Daniel Zhang.

Daniel has been with Alibaba Group for 11 years. Since he took over as CEO, he has demonstrated his superb talent, business acumen and determined leadership. Under his stewardship, Alibaba has seen consistent and sustainable growth for 13 consecutive quarters. His analytical mind is unparalleled, he holds dear our mission and vision, he embraces responsibility with passion, and he has the guts to innovate and test creative business models. Deservedly, China’s business news media has named him the No.1 CEO in 2018. For these reasons, he and his team have won the trust and support of customers, employees and shareholders.

Starting the process of passing the Alibaba torch to Daniel and his team is the right decision at the right time, because I know from working with them that they are ready, and I have complete confidence in our next generation of leaders.

As for myself, I still have lots of dreams to pursue. Those who know me know that I do not like to sit idle. I plan on continuing my role as the founding partner in the Alibaba Partnership and contribute to the work of the partnership. I also want to return to education, which excites me with so much blessing because this is what I love to do. The world is big, and I am still young, so I want to try new things – because what if new dreams can be realized?!

The one thing I can promise everyone is this: Alibaba was never about Jack Ma, but Jack Ma will forever belong to Alibaba.

Jack Ma

September 10, 2018

News of Mr. Ma’s retirement has also drawn intense attention from foreign media. On last Friday, the New York times published an article saying that Mr. Ma was retiring.

From The New York times

Alibaba started as an online marketplace for businesses to sell their products to other businesses. But it did not take off until it began the Taobao marketplace in 2003, which merchants used to sell goods directly to consumers.

Alibaba later rolled out Alipay, an online payment service, to facilitate transactions in a country where few people had credit cards. Alipay later became Ant Financial, the financial subsidiary that Mr. Ma also controls.

Today, Alibaba has been a global business empire:

e-commerce,
online banking,
cloud computing,
digital media
entertainment.

Last but not least, here is a video, looking back at Jack ma’s most wonderful moment in Alibaba’s 19 years:

Bank Accounts Frozen! Avoid Doing These Things!

Due to inadequate supervision in money laundering, the US government has imposed a fine of 19.2 billion USD on HSBC in December 2012. Hence, banks in Hong Kong enhanced the supervision on accounts one after another.

Bank Accounts Frozen! Avoid Doing These Things!

Image | Google

In the past five years, with the gradual improvement of bank supervision system, it would be difficult to open Hong Kong bank accounts, and it would be impossible to reopen accounts in the same bank if the accounts are closed due to inappropriate maintenance.

#Hence, how to maintain bank accounts and avoid being closed?

Try to avoid these operations!

The following situations may enhance the possibility of your account being closed!

Lump-sum time deposit or withdrawal

Amount is transferred within a short time when the account receives it.

Collection and payment business

The account has record of trading with different business and accounts, and there is great difference between the amount of foreign exchange and the amount of ordinary deposit and withdrawal.

Image | Google

Trade with personal account

There are obvious differences existing in the purposes between personal account and company account. Company account is only used for foreign exchange loans, reception of capital from shareholder, payment of wages and profit sharing ect.

Doing business with countries

that are sanctioned

Most of the banks prefer to trade with developed regions. In terms of turbulent areas, it is hard for banks to judge the fund security. Thus, banks may close the bank accounts in order to avoid being fined from government.

Cash deposit and withdrawal

For cash deposit and withdrawal, it is impossible for banks to supervise the source and usage of capitals. It is suggested that the amount of cash deposit and withdrawal of each month should be 10% to 30% of the income with proper reasons.

Image | Google

Trade with underground banks

It is also hard for banks to supervise the exchange earnings betweenunderground banks and remitting companies and to judge the payment for goods and unknown capitals. Banks can only close all these accounts to avoid this phenomenon. Therefore, your account may be involved in the crisis if it has business contact with these companies.

Multi-industry account

Banks think that the business of middle and small-sized enterprises is simplex. For instance, banks will question the authenticity of business operation if the account of a garment company has frequent contact with the accounts of hardware, electronic, frozen meat, furniture, toy and printing companies.

How to operate your bank accounts?

Keep the capitals working

There should be one to two deposit or withdrawal records within three months in your account. If there is no record over half a year, the bank will consider the bank account to be unnecessary to clients and may close the account.

Be faithful & truthful

in your bank documents

Banks will investigate and keep a record of the company backgrounds and business models during account opening and annual audit. If the regions, business and capital of foreign exchange disagree with the records and reasonable excuse can not be provided, your bank account may be closed.

Image | Google

Keep in touch with the bank &

update your information in time

Banks will contact clients through emails, phone calls and letters with deadlines when necessary. To avoid losing contact with the banks, which may result in accounts closing, you are supposed to contact the banks to change your phone number, email address or postal address in time, and update the information registered in the banks.

Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Jiaguwen, or “oracle bone script“, the earliest Chinese writing inscriptions carved on tortoise shells and animal scapulas, comes alive on Chinese internet and evolves itself as a new online language among the young generation.

Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

A brilliant idea

“I never imagined that I can use Jiaguwen to communicate with my friends. I thought they can only be seen in my textbooks and understood by a few researchers. Also, these memes look so creative and cute,” said Sina Weibo user Daodan Xiaopan.

“The digitization of Jiaguwen is a brilliant idea to promote Chinese traditional culture, and I hope the designers can launch more memes for me to learn the ancient characters,” WeChat user Xin Wenxu added.

The interest of the ancient characters

Chen Nan, who designs Jiaguwen memes, is happy to know that Chinese netizens like his works.

“At present, most people think Jiaguwen is hard to understand and ignore the great historic value of it. Through using Jiaguwen memes, I truly hope that more people can develop the interest of the ancient characters and make it accessible to more people’s daily life,” Chen said.

Graduating from the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University, Chen has devoted himself to studying Chinese characters’ design for 17 years.

Chinese characters

“Jiaguwen is mainly the pictograph with regular strokes and beautiful form, and it can be dated back to the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-11th century BC), which is regarded as the primary form of modern Chinese characters,” Chen said.

“The design and promotion of Jiaguwen should follow the trend rather than turn it into a cultural symbol that is obscure and unpredictable. Chinese characters are the cultural genes of our nation, which ensures the strong vitality of Chinese fine culture,” Chen added.

Funny Jiaguwen

Here are some funny Jiaguwen memes that integrate Chinese ancient writings and chic online words. Let’s take a look.

Xiang Ni, which means “I Miss you” in English.

Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Zhen Ke Ai, which means “You are adorable” in English.

Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Da Jia Hao, which means “Hi, everyone!” in English.

Ai Ni, which means “Love you” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Chi Huo, which means “Foodie” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Fa Hong Bao, which means “Red envelopes” or “Lucky money” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Gu Zhang, which means “Applause” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Hao De, which means “Okay” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Kai Xin, which means “Happy” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Qin Qin, which means “Kiss” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Wan An, which means “Good night” in English. Supernatural! Ancient Characters Come Alive On Memes!

Avoid Losses! These Latest Information You Should Keep In Mind!

Attention! Shanghai Port

The vessel into Shanghai Port needs special information report during this period of time!

Avoid Losses! These Latest Information You Should Keep In Mind!

Implementation time

Chinese Vessels: September 15 solstice mid-November;

Any Chinese vessel enter the water era of Huangpu River at Shanghai Port for navigation, berthing and operation shall report to the Maritime administration for special information, and shall apply for special ship safety inspection.

Foreign Vessels: October 1 solstice mid-November;

Any Foreign vessel enter the water era of Huangpu River at Shanghai Port for navigation, berting and operation shall report to the Maritime administration for special information, and the Maritime administration will carry out special security Inspection of vessel in combination with Port State Control.

Great! Shanghai Customs

Shanghai Customs fully implements the early declaration, and it is not necessary to arrive at the Port in advance!

The declaration procedure can be completed without changing the bill of lading!

Import “Advance declaration” business process.

Prepare for all declarations;
Check & confirm that the manifest data has been transmitted to the customs through the website of GACC: http://www.customs.gov.cn/;
Before the arrival of the transportation vehicle, go through the procedures of declaration,tax payment, etc;
After the transportation vehicle arrives at the Port, it will be released for delivery and inspection procedures.
Notice! Tianjin Customs

Tianjin Customs issued a notice, Export goods will be gradually by the port of shipment arrived from September 1!

All Export goods will be delivered by the Dock gradually before December 31,2018, and the depot will no longer send the delivery report.

All Export container cargoes (including foreign containers) in operation have been changed to the Port reporting mode.

Alert! Yangshan Port

Only an access to the Yangshan Port in Shanghai, the Donghai Bridge, began construction on September 3 and it is expected that construction will end on September 10.

In the coming week

Yangshan Port may present a continuous traffic situation. Please pay attention to the shipping delay and do not rush.