Matts blog

I thought I should write something about my long and almost painful process of transferring my RMB salary in to a GPB account held in the UK. There seems to be a lot of posts on expat forums and newsgroups asking how to achieve this, but very few answers, and I’m the only person I know how has actually achieved this. The first thing to remember is that transferring money is not a problem, the actual electronic transfer works like everywhere else, so take along your bank details, including branch address and find out the IBAN and SWIFT codes for your account, the main difficulty is exchanging RMB to USD/GPB/etc

First of all, allocate a good chunk of time to do the transaction, and prepare well, you will require all of the following documents:

1. Alien Employment Permit
2. Employment Contract
3. Certificate of Salary
4. Certificate of Income Tax Return (Usually one per month)
5. Passport

You’ll need the originals of all of these, and a photocopy as well, I prepared photocopies of all the documents, and photo page and visa pages of my passport, and any page with a red seal from my Alien Employment Permit.

Most of these documents should be readily available from your HR / operations team, and as long as they have the company seal on them all should be OK.

You’ll need to find a reasonable sized branch, my account was held at Bank of China, and I chose to us ethe Guomao branch as they speak reasonable English there. Expect to queue for some time, you’ll probably be one of many at the Fund Transfer or Travellers Cheque counter - I got pointed to this counter from the normal counters.

Once you get to the counter you’ll have to present your paperwork which is checked, particular attention is given to the tax documents, and a calculation of how much can be converted and transfered calculated, I’m not sure what the formula is, but I was OK

Next you’ll have to fill in a number of forms:

• Payment Form For Payment Abroad
  This form details who you are paying, what currency you are paying in to the amount of currency and the reason in the form of a code - mine was 3200 ‘Other Investment’
• Application For Telegraphic Transfers (overseas)
  This details the sender (you) the receiver (maybe you!!) and the bank details, you only have a small box to fit ALL the bank details in to so take care, you will be asked for IBAN, Swift, Sort code, account number and branch address. This sheet also details the RMB amount and the exchange rate (I got 14.37)
  
• A form in Chinese (I’ll translate and put the name here)
  This has your name, phone number, china address, and (i think) the reason for the purchase of foreign currency.

Next a whole load of transaction slips will require signing, and pin numbers entering, this covers the transaction itself and the commission (for me 100RMB).

Once everything is complete the forms and paperwork will be taken away for checking, this may take a while, as the tax payments were recalculated, but once everything is calculated and many, many stamps applied, its all done! Sounds so simple when its written down, but it took me just short of 2 hours to complete.

I’m not sure how long it takes to reach the UK, I’ll update this entry when it arrives.

I’m waiting for my broadband to be installed, and the CDMA network has stopped working so I’m using dialup internet access, its provided by the phone provider, its reasonably priced, and you don’t need an account:

Phone number: 16900
Login: 169
Password: 169

or

Phone number: 16300
Login: 163
Password: 163

Very handy and should work anywhere in China as far as I’m aware.

So after 2 crazy weeks in terms of amount of work and socialising I’m back in China, with the welcome of 30C and high humidity and failed airconditioning, but its amazing what a 97RMB fan can do to cool you down!!!!!

The first week in erding was very productive, but working 12+ hour days wasn’t quite what I had in mind, and needless to say I didn’t manage to get out to do any shopping, so will be stuck with Chinese trousers for ever!!! Erding seems like a nice little place, and has a very nice Irish Bar in the center, with fantatic food.

The weekend in the UK was fantastic, my Niece has grown loads, and is much more interactive, hopefully I can try and get back to the UK on a regular basis!! Strangely the weekend in the UK was roasting hot, I was expected and had packed for a cold english summer, I was shocked!

The final week in Budapest started at 2am on monday morning with a trip to Luton airport, never a great start to a week It was fantastic finally meeting everyone in one place, about 80 of us all told, the work side was very useful, and the social side was fun too, an early night was 2am… I did manage to get a pretty decent hair cut though, which is pretty good news, was dreading another chinese cut.

Even the flight home was good, I got 2 seats so spread out and watched films

I’m knackered now though, cant wait to calm down a bit.

So, I think I’m convinced…  Moving to Beijing would be a good thing, and looking at the apartments here I think it’ll be a very enjoyable time.  I’ve visited a new development called R&F in the East of Beijing, not far from the metro, and surrounded by good bars and restaurants, including a Papa Johns, there’s also a Carrefour supermarket 800m away.

The development is very nice, with onsite gym, swimming pool, indoor tennis courts, bowling alleys and mahjong rooms!!!  The apartments are also very good quality, with gas, aircon, and bigger than my flat in Shanghai, Ikea seems to be the style of the day too, so its kinda like bing in London again!

I’m just about to go and look at some more, and talk prices, we are aiming for around 3000RMB pm for 60+ sqm…

There are photos here.

We took a daytrip to Hangzhou this weekend, thanks to a taxi driver that didn’t know where the station was we missed our train, but handily a bus to Hangzhou runs from Shanghai Meilong station to Hangzhou, and takes about 2 hours on the expressway through rice paddies.

We spent time at the west Lake had great food and beer, and visited the Silk market.

Its easy to see why Hangzhou as become known as one of the most beautiful parts of china, walking round the lake is very pleasant even in the rain

I never thought I’d find a decent curry here, and certainly not one that came to the excellent standards and price of Brick Lane in London, but it seems I was mistaken. Last night after a hard hour shopping at Xiang Yang Market, buying some work shirts, I felt the need for a nice cold beer and dinner, and came across Punjabi. Its located on Xiang Yang Road near Nan Chang Road and the food is fnatastic, with a good range of indian dishes, prefectly cooked breads, delightful rice and cold beer, including Tiger.

If you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine yourself inside a restaurant in Brick Lane, We’ll be going back soon.

I’m currently based in Shanghai working for a US company thats been operating here for around 18 months, I’ve been based here since January 2005.

I live in the Pudong on the east side of the Huangpu river which runs through the middle of shanghai. Pudong is a very new area of Shanghai, development of the area started around 10 years ago, and now hosts the new financial centre of Shanghai.

Pudong also houses the tallest buildings in Shanghai, the Oriental Pearl TV tower which is 468m but this is dwarfed by the Jin Mao Building the tallest building in China, and third tallest in the world. By 2007 Jin Mao will in turn be dwarfed by the Shanghai World Finance Centre which is aiming to be the tallest in the world. Further from the river you get to the more industrialised areas of Pu dong, and seem familiar names like Siemens, Alcatel, and such like, and further out still you get to Pud dong (PVG) airport.

The west of the huangpu river, Puxi, is the older area of Shanghai, holding the main centre of the city, the shopping areas and a large majority of the businesses seem to operate in this area. Further from the river the city turns in to a more residential areas, with districts such as Gubei by very popular with expats.