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04-26-2007, 07:49 PM
Bay Area, Chinese businesses draw closer
David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2007
http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/04/26/bu_pollution081.jpg
The Port of Oakland could see closer ties and more business with the Port of Shanghai because of the pact signed Wednesday
Bay Area executives and business leaders from China's Shanghai and Yangtze River delta area signed an unusual region-to-region development pact Wednesday that will provide capital and know-how to the fast-growing Asian nation and open up business opportunities for local companies.
The pact, signed in Shanghai, calls for the creation of a venture capital fund of up to $250 million to seed Chinese high-tech and biotechnology startup ventures. The agreement is also designed to streamline the logistics of the growing seaborne cargo trade between the Port of Oakland and the Port of Shanghai, to encourage the design of environmentally friendly buildings in China, and to develop Shanghai's Yangpu district as an information technology center.
The pact is a memorandum of understanding and doesn't spell out how its ambitious goals will be realized. But backers hailed it as a vehicle for innovation.
The agreement is unusual as a private initiative that bypasses the U.S. and Chinese governments. In addition, it links regions rather than countries or cities. It was drafted by the Bay Area Council, a business public policy organization based in San Francisco, and China's Yangtze Council, which is led by billionaire Hong Kong developer Vincent Lo.
Lo's company, Shui On Group, created the trendy Xintiandi district, a cluster of shops, restaurants and bars in historic central Shanghai, early this decade.
"The Yangtze and the Bay Area share a lot in common as the innovative capitals of their respective countries,'' Lo said in a statement Wednesday. "There is also a great history of friendship and mutual support.''
The Bay Area and Shanghai match up well, due primarily to the heavy investment in technology in the Chinese metropolis and the financial acumen of the Bay Area, said Nicholas Hope, deputy director of the Stanford Center for International Development. He added that the private nature of the pact is also positive.
Hope noted, however, that the pact "impresses largely for its potential. It is a fairly broad protocol. What you'd like to see is the first 10 or 20 deals.'' He also cautioned that safeguarding intellectual property could be a challenge because Chinese protections for sophisticated technology exist "more in theory than in practice.''
Shanghai, China's largest city, lies near the mouth of the Yangtze River, close to where the river meets the East China Sea. The area is a major staging zone for waterborne cargo to and from U.S. West Coast ports, including the Port of Oakland, this country's fourth-biggest port.
The technology venture capital fund is a key element of the plan, according to Bay Area Council spokesman John Grubb. The effort is headed by Richard Kramlich, co-founder and general partner of New Enterprise Associates, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund.
Wednesday's memorandum of understanding has been about a year in the making. It began taking shape when Bay Area business leaders contacted Lo, who built support for it in Hong Kong and mainland China.
San Francisco has had a sister city relationship with Shanghai since the 1980s, but the development pact is designed to work outside that often-ceremonial framework and to be both geographically broader and more concretely linked to commerce.
Grubb said the Port of Oakland, which handles 95 percent of the Bay Area's waterborne imports and exports, expects to work extensively with port authorities in Shanghai, a major gateway to fast-developing China and in a string of big inland cities that lies along the Yangtze. The controversial Three Gorges dam is being built in part to make the Yangtze -- one of China's longest, most congested and famous rivers -- more easily navigable.
The Bay Area-Yangtze plan is also designed to promote emerging, clean technologies in the design and construction of "green'' buildings in heavily polluted China, in large part by making buildings energy-efficient.
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Business in China tied to Bay Area
The Bay Area already has close economic links with China. Here are a few:
-- China's Internet runs on Cisco routers and switching equipment.
-- Visa International claims 70 percent of China's credit cards.
-- Chinese alumni have donated more than $100 million to Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Source: Bay Area Council
David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2007
http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/04/26/bu_pollution081.jpg
The Port of Oakland could see closer ties and more business with the Port of Shanghai because of the pact signed Wednesday
Bay Area executives and business leaders from China's Shanghai and Yangtze River delta area signed an unusual region-to-region development pact Wednesday that will provide capital and know-how to the fast-growing Asian nation and open up business opportunities for local companies.
The pact, signed in Shanghai, calls for the creation of a venture capital fund of up to $250 million to seed Chinese high-tech and biotechnology startup ventures. The agreement is also designed to streamline the logistics of the growing seaborne cargo trade between the Port of Oakland and the Port of Shanghai, to encourage the design of environmentally friendly buildings in China, and to develop Shanghai's Yangpu district as an information technology center.
The pact is a memorandum of understanding and doesn't spell out how its ambitious goals will be realized. But backers hailed it as a vehicle for innovation.
The agreement is unusual as a private initiative that bypasses the U.S. and Chinese governments. In addition, it links regions rather than countries or cities. It was drafted by the Bay Area Council, a business public policy organization based in San Francisco, and China's Yangtze Council, which is led by billionaire Hong Kong developer Vincent Lo.
Lo's company, Shui On Group, created the trendy Xintiandi district, a cluster of shops, restaurants and bars in historic central Shanghai, early this decade.
"The Yangtze and the Bay Area share a lot in common as the innovative capitals of their respective countries,'' Lo said in a statement Wednesday. "There is also a great history of friendship and mutual support.''
The Bay Area and Shanghai match up well, due primarily to the heavy investment in technology in the Chinese metropolis and the financial acumen of the Bay Area, said Nicholas Hope, deputy director of the Stanford Center for International Development. He added that the private nature of the pact is also positive.
Hope noted, however, that the pact "impresses largely for its potential. It is a fairly broad protocol. What you'd like to see is the first 10 or 20 deals.'' He also cautioned that safeguarding intellectual property could be a challenge because Chinese protections for sophisticated technology exist "more in theory than in practice.''
Shanghai, China's largest city, lies near the mouth of the Yangtze River, close to where the river meets the East China Sea. The area is a major staging zone for waterborne cargo to and from U.S. West Coast ports, including the Port of Oakland, this country's fourth-biggest port.
The technology venture capital fund is a key element of the plan, according to Bay Area Council spokesman John Grubb. The effort is headed by Richard Kramlich, co-founder and general partner of New Enterprise Associates, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund.
Wednesday's memorandum of understanding has been about a year in the making. It began taking shape when Bay Area business leaders contacted Lo, who built support for it in Hong Kong and mainland China.
San Francisco has had a sister city relationship with Shanghai since the 1980s, but the development pact is designed to work outside that often-ceremonial framework and to be both geographically broader and more concretely linked to commerce.
Grubb said the Port of Oakland, which handles 95 percent of the Bay Area's waterborne imports and exports, expects to work extensively with port authorities in Shanghai, a major gateway to fast-developing China and in a string of big inland cities that lies along the Yangtze. The controversial Three Gorges dam is being built in part to make the Yangtze -- one of China's longest, most congested and famous rivers -- more easily navigable.
The Bay Area-Yangtze plan is also designed to promote emerging, clean technologies in the design and construction of "green'' buildings in heavily polluted China, in large part by making buildings energy-efficient.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Business in China tied to Bay Area
The Bay Area already has close economic links with China. Here are a few:
-- China's Internet runs on Cisco routers and switching equipment.
-- Visa International claims 70 percent of China's credit cards.
-- Chinese alumni have donated more than $100 million to Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Source: Bay Area Council
