The 16 Greatest Challenges of Doing Business in Brazil

【Answer 1】 Brazil’s São Paulo State Newspaper interviewed 200 global entrepreneurs or executives and identified the 16 greatest challenges of doing business in Brazil. Rank / Challenge / Vote Share 1. High Taxation — Tax Level (18.6%) 2. Restrictive Labor Regulations (12.5%) 3. Corruption (12.3%) 4. Inefficient Government Bureaucracy (12%) 5. Inadequate Infrastructure Supply (10.4%) 6. Policy Instability (7.4%) 7. Complexity of Tax Regulations (5.4%) 8. Difficulty Accessing Financing (5.2%)

A Concise History of China’s Film Market: Tracing 123 Years from Desolation to Rise

【Answer 2】 Key Events: • August 11, 1896: A French tourist screened a short film at the ‘You Yi Cun’ teahouse in Shanghai’s Xu Yuan garden—the earliest documented film screening in China. Thereafter, foreign nationals increasingly brought films to China for exhibition. • July 21, 1903: Spanish businessman Antonio Ramos began screening short films at Shanghai’s historic ‘Qing Lian Ge’ teahouse. Five years later, Ramos founded China’s first dedicated cinema—the Hongkou Moving Picture Theater—whose inaugural screening was the Western film *Dragon’s Nest*, marking the dawn of China’s film exhibition industry. Later, Ramos established six cinemas—including the Victoria Cinema, the Lyceum Cinema, the Wanguo Grand Theater, the Card Cinema, and the Empire Cinema—and founded the ‘Ramos Amusement Company’, an enterprise bearing strong resemblance to a modern cinema chain. By March 1926, Zhang Shichuan, Zhang Changfu, and others had leased five of Ramos’s cinemas through pooled capital and reorganized them into the Central Film Company; two additional theaters were later absorbed. This marked the first foray by film producers into exhibition—and also inaugurated a new era of theater-chain segmentation in China. • December 28, 1905: *Ding Jun Shan* (Mount Dingjun), directed by Ren Jingfeng—founder of Beijing’s Fengtai Photography Studio—and starring Tan Xinpei, premiered. It is recognized as China’s first domestically produced film. In 1909, Fengtai Photography Studio suffered a devastating fire that destroyed all equipment, halting production. Though it relocated several times thereafter, it never regained its former stature. Also in 1909, American film merchant Benjamin Brodsky invested in Shanghai to establish the Asia Film Company—the first film production company in China and the earliest foreign-invested film studio in the country. After the Qing Dynasty collapsed and the Republic of China was founded, sensing political turbulence, Brodsky transferred the Asia Film Company to foreign businessmen A. Eshel and J. Safford before preparing to return home. At this juncture, Zhang Shichuan teamed up with Zheng Zhengqiu, Du Junchu, and others to form the Xinmin Company, which exclusively contracted the Asia Film Company’s scriptwriting, directing, and acting services—while Asia provided funding and technical support. Their first film, *Hard Husband, Hard Wife*, became China’s first narrative feature film. Both companies ceased operations in 1914, following the outbreak of World War I and the resulting cutoff of German film stock. En route home, Brodsky and cinematographer Wan Wei Sha established the Huamei Film Company in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and collaborated with Li Minwei’s ‘Ren Wo Jing Drama Society’ to produce *Zhuangzi Tests His Wife*. This was China’s first narrative short film produced in Hong Kong—marking the birth of Hong Kong cinema—and the first Chinese film exported overseas (Brodsky took it to the United States). Brodsky is thus widely regarded as the first ‘agent’ who helped Chinese cinema enter the international arena. • June 1911: Shanghai’s ‘Zizhi Gongso’ (Municipal Self-Government Office) promulgated the ‘Regulations on the Supervision of Cinemas’, stipulating requirements such as: ‘Cinema operators must obtain official licenses’; ‘Men and women must sit separately’; ‘Films containing lewd or obscene content are prohibited’; and ‘Screenings must end no later than midnight’. These regulations are considered the origin of China’s film censorship system. • 1916: Zhang Shichuan and Guan Haifeng founded the Huanxian Film Company—the first Chinese film production company financially independent from foreign merchants. Its film *Black Register Grievance Soul* served as a transitional work bridging the gap between short and full-length narrative films in China. Yet after completing the film, Huanxian was forced to shut down due to financial shortages.

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