UCDC follows Marco Polo to China
 
The Great Wall, a great deal of building and a great opportunity for business.
That is what Lance Matteson, CEO and president of the Ulster County Development Corp., saw during his recent trip to China. He said that that in a global economy, even a relatively small county must think big when it comes to seeking opportunities such as investment capital, partnerships and places to export goods.
On the plus side: the New York name itself has tremendous cachet in China.Â
“I feel what it did was open up some doors to a lot more export to China for products from Ulster County and the Hudson Valley,” said Matteson. “A lot of businesses aren”™t aware that doing business in China is really an option, and it isn”™t as hard as people might think if you have the right contact and the right help.”
To provide that help, the New York Small Business Development Center has opened an office in Beijing to support New York state firms entering the Chinese market. And as Matteson points out, in a country of 1.4 billion people, garnering a mere 1 percent market share means having 14 million customers.
“The real mission was to help Ulster County business get opportunities in China,” Matteson said. “The global economy is not just a buzz word; it”™s real and it behooves us to try and make it work for us.”Â
His two-week trip to China ended with his return to his Kingston office June 26. He traveled with the New York state Small Business Development Center (SBDC) director Jim King and SBDC international specialist Jinshui Jiang, both of whom return from Asia July 1. Ward Todd, president of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce, was also on the trip.
“One of the takeaways is there are opportunities to sell in that market, it is navigable, it is doable, “ Matteson said, adding that having the SBDC office in Beijing is an important foot in the door, because to succeed,  “You have to choose your targets and be focused.”
Their journey to China and SBDC office there are motivated by simple economic demographics, Matteson said. Not only is China the world”™s most populous country, but its GDP growth is forecast by the World Bank to continue at a relatively robust 7.5 percent growth rate through 2009.
And these days, China is literally where the money is, with $1.2 Trillion in foreign currency reserves. In March, China announced it was going to use a significant portion of that reserve fund as seed money for an investment company. While no official follow up announcement has been made yet, the Chinese press, a state-controlled media, has speculated the investment fund could total $300 billion. And China this spring also announced its own domestic stimulus plan totaling about $500 billion in US dollars.
Matteson said the trip was a good way to lay ground work for bringing some of that investment funding to Ulster county, soliciting Chinese capital and joint ventures. He said that solar power is an increasingly important component of planning by Chinese officials for both their domestic market and overseas customers. He said Chinese officials “consistently and emphatically” expressed interest in facilitating partnerships with New York state solar and renewable firms.”™
“Our whole push for solar manufacturing in this area has some appeal,” Matteson said.
“If they want into the solar markets around New York City, which they do, we have a good fit.” He said that Ulster County has The Solar Energy Consortium organizing private companies and academia to promote solar power here, and said that gives the area an edge when it comes to seeking to attract Chinese investors and joint partners.
And he said Ulster County has an advantage other locales on the globe do not. “We can play off the New York state brand,” said Matteson. “We bad mouth ourselves, but the truth is, New York is huge in China. A lot of it centers on New York City but we can pitch our proximity and affordability.”
He said there are already companies from Ulster County and the Hudson Valley marketing products in China, including agricultural and niche manufacturing products and said that export pipeline could be opened wider,
Money from visitors is also a potentially valuable business opportunity. “We feel these visits are a venue to promoting Chinese tourists,” said Matteson. He said for Chinese citizens to get visas is an issue, but said that in Ulster County, “We already have an international clientele to some extent. And indications we got in China were encouraging assuming visas are issued; that is a potential growth area.”
Business in China is far from perfect, he said, with smog and scant wildlife as indicators of poor environmental health. The government last year closed factories temporarily to purge the atmosphere for the Olympics. “There are not many birds in China; it”™s noticeable,” Matteson said.
But he said that the cash in hand, the centralized decision making and lack of environmental concern has created ideal conditions for building, wisely or not. “The scale and speed of construction is mind boggling,” Matteson said.
“There are high rises, scaffolding, cranes everywhere you go; you can see why they sort of feel like they are in the ascendancy,” he said. “It is sobering, what they are investing in infrastructure, and how they think in long term. Their planning horizon is not five years, but 50 years.”