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Wales Looks for Closer Business Link with China
Wales in the United Kingdom is likely to become a springboard for Chinese enterprises to enter the European market, Chairman of the Welsh Development Agency sir David Rowe-Beddoe said in Beijing recently.
He told Xinhua during his visit to China last week that as the largest sophisticated consumer market in the world, Europe should become a counter-balance to China's trade and economic activities with the United States.
Rowe-Beddoe said that since Europe has a different economic cycle to the U.S., the expansion of Europe-China trade links will be good for China to spread the risks of its export sector and tide over the global economic slowdown.
His visit to Beijing, as well as Gansu province and Chongqing city in western China, coincided with the China-trip of a high- profile delegation of European Union to the Foreign Ministers' Meeting of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held in Beijing.
As head of the industrial and investment promotion agency of Wales, Rowe-Beddoe said that the agency encourages Chinese businesses to invest or set up representative offices in Wales as a way to explore the European market.
He said that since the UK attracted 40 percent of all direct foreign investment to Europe, Chinese enterprises will find Wales a favorable place to invest in order to gain access to the European market.
Rowe-Beddoe welcomes Chinese high-tech companies, such as software, new media, bio-technology and agri-food companies to set up branches in Wales, whose capital city Cardiff has a greater density fiber optic broad-band network than California in the U.S.
He said that as China is going to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Welsh Development Agency plans to open a representative office in Beijing in the near future. The WDA has already set up a representative office in Hong Kong.
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