The purposes of business letters and memos in China parallel the purposes they serve in North American businesses: introducing a candidate for employment, requesting information, making complaints, disseminating information to an office, proposing projects, making sales, and so on.
Letters
Make sure that your letterhead includes a fax number. If it doesn't, type it directly beneath the letterhead. Faxing continues to be an important component of doing business in China.
If a letter is generated on organizational letterhead, enter a document number on the far right side of the page, below the letterhead. This number identifies the letter's place in the organization's history of letters, as well as other information. North American use of reference numbers is not as common as it is in Chinese companies.
Beneath the document number but on the left side of the page, type only the name of the addressee's organization (not the address), followed by the name and appropriate title of the individual addressee. Chinese names are traditionally written with the surname (family name) first, followed by the given name. If your addressee has already written it with the given name first, though, continue to follow that form.
Write a salutation ("Dear ______:") as you would in a North American letter, then body of the letter, with an introductory paragraph, body paragraph(s), and a closing paragraph.
The sender name and date are typed toward the right side of the page, without a complimentary close. Dates are typed immediately under the sender name, in year-month-day format without commas (ex: 2007-05-16), rather than in the month-day-year North American format (May 16, 2007). Use of numbers instead of month names is a more regular occurrence.
As with a North American letter, type "CC" for anyone receiving an additional copy of the letter, followed by their names. A list of enclosures is optional.
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