As a reporter from China Development Gateway and www.toubiao.info, I went to Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, to attend "China's First Vocational Education Expo" and "China's Third Human Resources Expo" held in the Suzhou International Expo Center from November 10^th to 11^th.

"China's First Vocational Education Expo" is by far the largest and highest-standard event themed on vocational education since China adopted its reform and opening up policy in 1978, and also the only specialized expo of the industry in China.

About 35 officials attended the opening ceremony of the expo, including: Zhou Yuanqing, former minister of education, president of China Higher Education Society and vice councilor of China Employee Education Society; David Ang, Executive Director of the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations; Fan Zengyu, director of the Training Center of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development; Liu Tianxi, vice secretary-general of Hubei Provincial Committee; Zhu Yongxin, vice major of Suzhou; and Chen Guangqing, director-general of China Employee Education Society. More than 1,000 visitors attended the ceremony.

During the two-day expos which were very successful, I made the best use of the time to promote the CnDG and Toubiao, by showing posters, releasing brochures and providing internet service with CnDG website as the front page. I answered the questions of the visitors and introduced the details of CnDG and Toubiao. Many of them showed their interests.

As a supporting media, CnDG has its name and logo printed on various expo materials and its web link published on the website of the expo, along with the organizers.

(China Development Gateway by Zhang Xiaochong, translated by Xu Lin)

Today, an international conference on microcredit opened in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, a beautiful garden complex in Beijing. At the conference I had the great honor to meet Dr Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2006.

Dr. Yunus (66), attired in traditional Bangladeshi dress, looked confident and determined when he appeared. We all stood up and applauded loudly when he arrived by way of a welcome and to recognize his achievements.

Yunus, known as "the father of microcredit," established the Grameen Bank (Grameen) in 1976, a pioneer of the small-loans financing concept. The bank has so far lent US$5.72 billion to more than six million Bangladeshis and the concept has been introduced to other developing countries benefiting more than 100 million poorer clients worldwide. Yunus and his colleagues came to China to explore ways of replicating the Bangladesh success story.

His speech was very encouraging. He was happy to have won the Nobel prize but stressed the honor was not for him as an individual but his team and also for all the people who had benefited from the project. They were the real winners.

Yunus' trip to Beijing was fully scheduled. He also made a speech at Peking University and had meetings with Chinese officials. He brought to the conference the new edition of his book-- Banker to the Poor-- and I was lucky to obtain an autographed copy.

I encountered microcredit for first time when I attended the Asia Conference on Micro-finance and Women's Development last year. At the event I met many microcredit professionals, both Chinese and foreigners, and learnt a great deal about this new concept of poverty reduction.

I believe microcredit is a good way to assist lifting China's poor out of poverty. China should adopt relevant laws and regulations and inject abundant funds to support this project. Only when poverty is eliminated will society become peaceful and harmonious and the whole country much stronger.

For more information about the conference please visit: http://www.chinagate.com.cn/english/news/49078.htm.

More Photos can be found at: http://www.chinagate.com.cn/english/blog/49344.htm

(China Development Gateway by Xu Lin)

As a journalist from China Development Gateway I attended the EU-China International Development Forum held in the China Resources Hotel, Beijing this afternoon. Focusing on "Urban Development and Environment Protection" the Forum attracted many officials, professionals and entrepreneurs.

All the presentations were superb but the one which impressed me most was given by Hu Shiying, executive president of the International Green Industry Cooperation Organization. In his presentation he described an ideal scene of future urban development with fewer vehicles on the roads, less pollution and fewer traffic jams. He described everyone living in buildings on just three levels…no need to climb the stairs everyday.

Hu said the above scene wasn't just a dream. We focused too much on construction and development…paying little attention to the long-term ecological issues and environmental protection. Cities are places where many people live so everyone has the responsibility of protecting them.  

I was deeply moved by his speech. It made me aware of the importance of urban environmental protection. We should all do out utmost to create a better environment for society and for all of us.

Photos can be found at: http://www.chinagate.com.cn/english/blog/49343.htm

(China Development Gateway by Ye Nana, translated by Xu Lin October 18, 2006)

October 17 is the 14th International Eradication of Poverty Day, and China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation held an award ceremony for the 2nd China Poverty Eradication Award at the Great Hall of the People to honor 12 individuals and organizations for their outstanding contribution to the fight against poverty. China Development Gateway is the partner of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, so I attended the award ceremony yesterday.

Photos can be found at: http://www.chinagate.com.cn/english/blog/49136.htm

(China Development Gateway by Wang Sining October 17, 2006)

Today is one to remember for us! www.toubiao.info, a web portal dedicated to facilitating international bidding and tender transactions, was officially launched following six months of trials since March 18. The system is the brainchild of the Development Gateway Foundation (www.dgmarket.com) under the World Bank, China Bidding Ltd (www.chinabidding.com.cn) and us.   

To celebrate this big day we held a press conference this afternoon. Around 60 people including officials from the Chinese government, the World Bank and representatives from various companies were in attendance. The China Internet Information Center did a live-webcast on www.china.com.cn.

The press conference was held in Beijing New Century Hotel in the city's western area. The venue was decorated with fresh flowers and a huge screen displayed all the information about the website.

Beijing's fall is the city's best season and a truly good event at a quite wonderful time of year made the staff of our website very happy. We’ve seen the results of what we have done in the past months for Toubiao.com.

Toubiao is actually the Chinese version of the Development Gateway Market (dgMarket), an online procurement platform run by the Development Gateway Foundation, whose services include provision of bidding and tendering information, consultation and promotion on behalf of governments and enterprises.

The dgMarket is a mature website with a great deal of content so the localization of it was not easy. Translation was a big part of work as were the various technical issues. To speed up the process of its localization and provide users with the best services, we spent a lot of time with translation ensuring we were accurate. We also communicated frequently with dgMarket and China Bidding through ‘three-party’ multiple teleconferences. Those two parties also contributed a lot to the construction and operation of Toubiao.

With successful cooperation and mutual effort, Toubiao, a platform with over 60,000 bidding notices a year, became available to Chinese enterprises, giving them access to worldwide tendering and offering foreign companies and government agencies an insight to the Chinese bidding and tender markets.

We hope all of our users enjoy our services and more enterprises are welcome to become our members.

For more information of our press conference please visit http://www.chinagate.com.cn/english/news/48860.htm.

Photos can be found at: http://www.chinagate.com.cn/english/blog/48883.htm.

(China Development Gateway, by Xu Lin)