Portland Mayor Tom Porter, Port of Portland officials, auto dealers and Autowarehousing met with Chinese delegation. A pilot project with city of Portland will debut in fall 2008.

Portland Business Journal article

]]> http://www.chinaselections.com/web/news/83/feed/ http://www.chinaselections.com/web/news/78 http://www.chinaselections.com/web/news/78#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:18:11 +0000 admin News http://www.chinaselections.com/web/news/78 Portland, Oregon- Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Rich Read of The Oregonian writes an article on Octaxias President Jin Lan today. For details, please read PDF document below.

jin-oregonian-article.pdf

Nautilus Inc. has retained the services of Octaxias Company, L.L.C. to facilitate its M&A operation in China. Both companies will work together in the coming months to complete its $60 million acquisition in China.

Oregon State Representative Dennis Richardson (head of delegation), Oregon Economic Development Department (OECDD) International Trade Manager Derrick Olsen, and lawyer/engineer Thomas Benke participated the meeting. Both sides exchanges views on carbon trading,CDM and Kyoto Protocol.

U.S. Commercial Consul Eric Hsu made opening remarks to the Chinese participants. Eric Hsu currently serves as a Commercial Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai, China.

In this capacity, Mr. Hsu focuses his work on assisting American companies doing business in China in the environmental technologies, construction, power generation and marine technologies sectors. U.S. Reliant Chairman David McInnis introduced his company.

The company currently owns and operates one of the country’s largest state-of-the art fleets of rapid-prototyping and rapid-manufacturing equipment, often referred to as 3-D printers.

Technical seminar is a very effective marketing tool in China’s cut-throat competitive environment.

U.S. Reliant is in the business of quick prototyping. Q Tires Inc. is in the business of producing all seasonal tires. Ambassador Zhou Wen Zhong listened to their issues facing their respective industries and offered his office’s strong support for their business ventures in China.

oregonian-article-on-q-tires-8-21.pdf

China’s envoy to the United States won’t duck challenging questions during a rare, three-day Portland visit beginning today, according to his aides.

Aside from fielding such perennial issues as the trade deficit and human rights, they say Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong will be ready to confront the main China topic on Americans’ minds: product recalls.

“It’s unfair to just blame China for that,” said Tong Defa, China’s consul in San Francisco, referring to the recent recalls of toys and other Chinese-made products. “The ambassador will touch this issue.”

Despite various irritants in U.S.-Chinese relations, Zhou arrives during an era of relative bilateral calm, taking the chance to burnish China’s image in a largely friendly U.S. region. Oregon and Washington — which he’ll also visit, spending Wednesday in Seattle — are big exporters to China. Chinese cultural ties are burgeoning in the Pacific Northwest.

Zhou, a career diplomat who has served previously in the United States, will probably play up China’s status as Oregon’s second-biggest foreign customer behind Canada, spending $1.39 billion on goods from the state last year. Although he visited Oregon years ago while stationed in California, this visit will be his first to the state as ambassador.

Zhou plans meetings with Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Port of Portland officials, Chinese-community members and managers of several companies doing business with China. He’ll talk with administrators of Portland State University, which hosts a new Confucius Institute backed by Beijing to promote Chinese language, culture and teaching. And he’ll visit nearby Nike, which depends on Chinese factories to churn out many of its sneakers; China’s growing consumer class is becoming addicted to the swoosh.

Zhou can point to ever-closer economic dependence between the United States and China, despite military rivalry and a vast political and social gulf. But he also must confront China’s most recent black eye, the mushrooming recalls of unsafe products ranging from toys to tires. The controversy will dog the ambassador and frame his message, predicted Greg Kulander, one of Oregon’s most experienced China hands.

“It’s damage control,” said Kulander, a former consultant and corporate manager who spent 10 years in China and holds a Chinese-studies doctorate. “They’re dealing with some very serious image problems on the trade side.”

Currency concerns, too

Members of Congress are pushing the Bush administration to press China harder on raising the value of its currency, saying the artificially weak yuan boosts China’s huge trade surplus. U.S. business leaders complain about corruption and rampant product piracy.

Yet just as China depends on enormous U.S. consumer purchases, the United States counts on the Chinese to invest in its Treasury bonds. Washington and Beijing also have common diplomatic interests, including their participation in six-nation talks to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

“If you log back over the history of U.S.-China relations since 1972, things are pretty positive right now,” said Joseph Borich, a former U.S. consul general in Shanghai, who heads the Washington State China Relations Council. “I’m guessing that the ambassador is coming out here with an upbeat message about U.S.-China relations.”

Taiwan — which the United States backs, but which Beijing still considers a rebel province — is not quite the immediate flashpoint it was, given the island territory’s close commercial ties with the mainland.

Chinese factories and coal plants shower pollutants on the Northwest and other regions, but U.S. consumers prime that pump, and Beijing is pushing alternative energy.

Zhou will give the keynote address Tuesday afternoon at a Portland business conference on environmental sustainability.

The ambassador will address broader issues during a World Affairs Council of Oregon luncheon talk that day. There, he could face questions on farther-flung topics, such as Beijing’s support of the Sudan government, widely condemned for violence in Darfur. More than 160 people will fill the University Club lunch to capacity; more are clamoring to attend.

2008 Olympics

Zhou would probably prefer to dwell on the 2008 Olympic Games, which will be staged in Beijing a year from now. He can expect friendly questions on that topic as China prepares for world attention, although even the Games aren’t immune from politics.

Zhou and his wife, Xie Shumin, are invited to Tuesday dinner with Gov. Ted Kulongoski and his wife, Mary Oberst, at the governor’s mansion in Salem. One topic on the agenda: a potential trade trip by Kulongoski to China next year.

A well-connected Portland-area business consultant pressed Zhou to visit Portland, arranging much of the agenda. Jin Lan, founder of Octaxias Co., is executive director of the Oregon committee that coordinates sister-state relations with China’s Fujian province.

Seattle has routinely upstaged Portland in attracting high-level Chinese visitors, hosting President Hu Jintao last year. But this time, Borich said, Washington state made the itinerary as an after-thought — due mainly to a Seattle lawyer who got wind of the Portland visit and suggested the add-on.

Richard Read: 503-294-5135; richread@aol.com

Read original article at:

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/

base/business/1187416629248830.xml&coll=7&thispage=1

Portland

Octaxias first facilitated Sustainable Development Seminar in Oregon for senior Chinese officials with UTstarcom in 2003. In the last 4 years, more than a dozen of ministers and more than 3 dozen of mayors have come to Oregon for good practice on sustainable development. The seminar impact on future Chinese leadership is both far reaching and significant.

Shenzhen

Octaxias President Jin Lan met with senior management of BYD Auto and presented U.S. market entry strategy. Both sides promised to work closely in the coming month to refine marketing , government affairs strategy, and explore dealership set up in the U.S. Lan was very impressed with his first test drive of F3e. Its feel and power resembled a gas car.

Turning the Future Into Revenue provides insights from business owners leading the vanguard in dealing with these emerging businesses, among them Jin Lan, founder of Octaxias Company, LLC, a boutique consulting company offering services to U.S.-based companies doing business in China. That China matters is evident from its impact on the global economy. Since 2000, China’s contribution to global GDP growth (in purchasing-power-parity terms) has been bigger than the United States’, and more than half as big again as the combined contribution of India, Brazil, and Russia, the three next-largest emerging economies. China’s massive build-up of U.S. Treasury bonds affects U.S. interest rates and thus Americans’ willingness to spend. This powerfully affects you: your job, your company, your economic future, and your country. Lan sees breakthroughs in agriculture, nanotechnology, and information technology to be among the most significant developments coming out of China in the next two decades, developments that companies considering doing business in China should leverage for profit.

Learn how Jin Lan sees the technological shifts in China which can impact your life in “Turning The Future Into Revenue” at Amzon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Future-Into-Revenue-Individuals/

dp/0471792934/ref=sr_1_1/104-7550531-7855906?ie=UTF8&s=

books&qid=1172976261&sr=1-1