Forty percent of expats consider business start-ups in China

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Protection

Known for its manufacturing, China is still a new player in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection with much room for improvement.

China has done a lot in IPR protection work since 2008.

The State Council has carried out the Action Plan for Deepening the Implementation of the National Intellectual Property Strategy (2014-2020) in 2014 which made it clear that the country wants to build China into a great power in the IPR field in the future.

A recent survey conducted among expats has revealed that 43.2 percent of expats on the whole are satisfied with China's IPR performance in recent years.

Specifically, 15.5 percent of expats think that China is superior to foreign counterparts in IPR protection, while 36.3 percent of expats think that China is inferior; 27.7 percent think China and other countries are almost the same in this field.

In addition, the patent conversion rate represents a big challenge for China's IPR strategy.

The latest data shows a total of 1,102,000 cases of patent applications for invention have been processed in 2015, an increase of 18.7 percent year-on-year, ranking first for five consecutive years.

Also, domestic patent licensing saw a year-on-year rise of 61.9 percent, arriving at 263,000 in 2015.

However, the transition from quantity to quality in patent application remains to be seen.

More than 61.9 percent of expats agree that China underperforms in patent conversion rate with only a small part or none of the patents being well applied in the market.

Expats also suggest that improving related laws and regulations as well as building a platform for patent transactions would help in improving the low conversion rate.

Salary Issue

Regarding the issue of salaries, more than 70 percent (73.9 percent) of expats are satisfied with their salaries in China.

A further study shows that age is a large factor in salary satisfaction.

The group of people aged above 50 is most satisfied with their salaries in China, accounting for 76.8 percent of the total.

When taking work place into account, Beijing tops the table with a percentage of 98.7 among expats.

Chengdu, the capital city in Sichuan province, is the least satisfying city according to expats.

Meanwhile, more than 57 percent of expats with master's degrees are content with their lives in China, the study found.

Also, the study found that expats graduating from junior colleges are more concerned more with Chinese food than their own budget.