News

Montanans promote goods, services in China

On Deb Kottel’s trip last month to China, she and other members of a trade delegation led by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., visited the tomb of Chairman Mao.

"People were buying poppies then walking up to the tomb and putting them in a cart," she said. "When the carts were full, soldiers would bring them back down and resell the flowers. It’s a new type of capitalism in China and everybody’s involved in it."

By JO DEE BLACK
Tribune Staff Writer

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20040409/localnews/200442.html

Montanans want a piece of that capitalism, too.

Delegation members promoted the state’s grain crop and specialty beef, air cargo services and telecommunications.

"It’s an important, logical, market for us," said Jess O’Hara, a Chouteau County Commissioner and farmer who paid for airfare on his own dime. "There are 1.3 billion people there and we have the infrastructure to move our products to China."

Delegation members say officials from China’s top grain buyer, China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuff Import & Export Corp., agreed to buy more wheat from Montana.

Although China traditionally grows enough food to feed its own population, drought has taxed reserves, O’Hara said.

"We stressed that Montana can be a reliable source of grain for the Chinese," O’Hara said.

Although agriculture officials have eyed China’s potential as a big grain buyer for years, the Asian nation’s industrialization effort is opening up other business opportunities, too.

Kottel is the chairwoman of the Great Falls International Airport Authority. She urged Chinese government officials to end limits on foreign air cargo flights into the country. The move, a government to government open-air agreement, would allow Chinese cargo planes to make more flights into the United States.

Today the U.S. federal government has a quota on the number of Chinese-owned cargo company flights that can land in this country.

The move would free the Great Falls Airport to court Chinese freight companies as steady customers.

"They can bring freight from China here to clear customs and be distributed," she said. "And those planes need to go back to China. Why not fill them with specialty Montana boxed beef?"

Shanghai, China, is exploding with world companies building skyscraper after skyscraper to set up shop. With those companies come plenty of Western executives.

O’Hara and other delegation members, including Ron Warnik, manager of Great Fall telecommunications and Internet business, Vision Net, dined at Shanghai’s Monte’s Restaurant one evening.

"The owner is a man from Vancouver, Wash. who once had a restaurant there that served beef from Montana’s Gallatin Valley," Warnik said. "He told us his goal is to serve all Montana products there, although right now he’s having trouble setting up a reliable way to import American beef."

Monte’s is marketing to U.S. business people traveling to or living in Shanghai, Warnik said.

The Chinese want their population to be ready for business too, and one effort means Montana school children may have plenty of new friends across the Pacific Ocean.

Warnik is working to link classrooms in China with those in some of the Montana schools his company services.

Vision Net is an Internet provider and does real time, video conferencing for colleges, hospitals and private businesses.

"The Chinese are very interested in setting up conferencing with American schools to help their own students practice English," Warnik said.

Kottel, Warnik and O’Hara said they’re working on follow ups with the Chinese officials they met with on the trip.

In October, Wang Xinkuy of the Shanghai World Trade Organization Affairs Consultation Center will lead a Chinese delegation to Montana.

"We want him to bring representatives from Chinese cargo companies to Great Falls to tour our airport facilities," Kottel said.

Some delegation members, including Kottel, also traveled to Japan and Thailand on the trip.

The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation paid for the group’s hotel, meals and travel in China. The foundation promotes relationships between the United States and Asia through a number of programs, grants and conferences. Named after the late Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana and his wife, the foundation has offices in Washington, D.C., the University of Montana-Missoula and Tokyo, Japan.

***************

Mansfield Center Conference

The 20th annual Mansfield Center Conference, titled "Plunging into the Sea: The Complex Face of Globalization In China" is set for April 18 to 20 at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center on the University of Montana-Missoula campus.

Experts from the United States and China will discuss four areas affected by globalization: Chinese economic development; political and human rights; the environment, and popular culture and society.

The conference is free and open to the public. For more information, call (406) 243-2988 or go to the Web site http://www.umt.edu/mansfield.

Schedule highlights

April 18

7:30-9:15 p.m. Jim Harkness, China Country Representative for the World Wildlife Fund in Beijing, China, will talk about globalization and the Chinese environment.

April 19

Noon-12:30 p.m. Jill Belsky, director of the UM Bolle Center for People and Forests, will present "Globalization: the ‘Big Picture’."

12:30-2:45 p.m. A panel discussion on globalization and the Chinese political environment.

3-5 p.m. A panel discussion on globalization and the Chinese economy.

7:30-8:45 p.m. Mark Sidel of the University of Iowa Law School, "Civil Society, Globalization and the State: China in Comparative Perspective."

April 20

12:30-2:30 p.m. A panel discussion on globalization and the environment in China.

2:45-4:30 p.m. A panel discussion on globalization and popular society and culture.

***************

Black can be reached by phone at (406) 791-6502 or (800) 438-6600.

Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.