EVI, whose headquarters in the US, yesterday started on a project named "Standard Oral Business English Training" in Beijing in a bid to solve the problem of "dumb English" among the business people.
As a result of success in winning the 2008 Olympic bid and imminent WTO entry there has been given rise to an "English Economy", bringing many foreign institutions to vie for a market share of English training in Beijing. An expert estimation shows that Beijing has as many as over one thousand languages training center (companies) competing for holding various language training courses with a market potential up to 200 million RMB.
Beijing Morning Daily reports English training classes or courses in Bejing vary in size and tuition fees. Thanks to a low tuition fee 10 to 20 Yuan per hour, Beijing English Training School has won a big stable attendance. New Dongfang's revenue of tuition fees reached 90 million Yuan last year. Jingcheng Cultural School, the biggest civilian-run children's English training center, is being run with a student body of as many as 16,000 enrollees. The US ELLIS Business English and Wall Street Business English as two US language institutions have already got a foothold in Beijing's English training market.
Meanwhile, foreign training institutions have not forget to force up prices when services are offered for English training. It's said Wall Street English training, which targets CEO, costs up to 10.000 Yuan in completion of all courses with different levels. Learning Wall Street English is a token of "I am a white collar". Experts analyze WTO entry and successful 2008 Olympic bid will speed up Beijing's modernization and boost English training market further.
(People's Daily November 6, 2001)
