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At the Great Wall The new China:
Rochester's new frontier
Raising the stakes in an ancient land
   Twenty years ago, he was an engineer in a state-owned film factory. Today, Yu Zhu Mao runs a Shanghai warehouse that keeps 400 stores stocked with Kodak film and cameras. He grosses $1 million a year, travels the globe, dines with top executives and diplomats -- and is ready to take on the world. Next year, Yu says without a trace of doubt, he'll sell more film in this city of 16 million people than is sold in all of New York City. No mean feat, given that only 15 percent of China's households own a camera. ''Well, why not?'' Yu says, flashing a million-dollar grin. FULL STORY...

Kodak's investment in China
   Workers in Eastman Kodak Co.'s new film-making factory in Xiamen get a lesson in the western ways of business every time they open their paychecks. The plant's 1,200 employees receive only 90 percent of their salaries on a regular basis. They have to earn the remaining 10 percent by collectively meeting a series of stiff environmental and other performance goals every six months. FULL STORY...

   He has a broad, boyish smile, goes by ''Dave'' around the office and likes to share personal stories even while talking about business. But don't misread David L. Swift's friendly nature as a sign he is a pushover. Eastman Kodak Co.'s senior executive in China says he is plenty aggressive when it comes to winning. FULL STORY...

A market of 1.2 billion customers
Digital X-rays    Just a few statistics about China's health care system are enough to explain Kodak's eagerness to sell X-ray film and related medical imaging products there. FULL STORY...

   Zhu Yongde knows why the movie-making business at his Shanghai Film Studio is struggling, but don't expect to find him cursing his luck. FULL STORY...

   Every time a customer requests a copy of an old transaction, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has to locate the customer in an index, then dispatch two employees to one of four giant warehouses to unearth the bound volume. Each warehouse is four stories tall and contains six million transaction books; each book has 600 to 800 individual transactions. FULL STORY...

   China's largest news organization made a daring business decision on June 30, 1997, the day China began reclaiming its sovereignty over Hong Kong. FULL STORY...

Rochester's other major players
Xerox China manager Allan Lin    Imagine trying to sell a million-dollar printer to a bank for making monthly statements -- only to discover that the bank doesn't even send out monthly statements. Such are the cultural struggles Xerox has faced in trying to sell its business products, which have been successful in the Western world, to China, potentially the world's largest marketplace. FULL STORY...

   Rochester's eye care giant was farsighted in spotting potential in a huge and nearsighted nation: More than half of China's 1.2 billion people are myopic, compared with 25 percent of westerners. In 1987, Bausch & Lomb Inc. became one of the first U.S. companies to establish a presence in China. FULL STORY...

More coverage
Also:

Flash presentations
   Kodak in China
   A Changing China

The Exchange
   Share your thoughts on these stories

   While U.S. corporations see free trade with China as a boundless economic opportunity, many workers, labor leaders and human rights activists believe it comes with a heavy price. FULL STORY...

   Over seven decades and across two continents, Yu Zhu Mao and his relatives have gotten more than just good pictures from Kodak. They have gotten a way of life. FULL STORY...

   China is the world's oldest continuous civilization, but that 4,500-year-old heritage hasn't kept the country from morphing into the globe's most fertile and powerful market for new technologies. FULL STORY...


 

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