HEFEI, China -- Whether it's growing too fast or just fast enough, China's booming economy is creating huge opportunities for Maryland businesses. The problem is how to take advantage of them.
Last week's tour of three Chinese cities organized by the state of Maryland shows some of the problems and successes facing small- and medium-sized companies that try to invest in the world's fastest-growing economy.
The tour also illustrated the value of government-sponsored trade delegations, which carry the clout that opens doors in China.
"These delegations get you a much higher level of access than you could if you came alone," said Harold Adams, chairman of RTKL International Ltd., the Baltimore architectural firm. "If you don't have these sorts of contacts, you don't get anywhere. It's very foreign for Americans to have government and business not separate, but in virtually every other part of the world, business and government work closely together."
The 16 business people and seven state officials on the trip spent much of their time meeting counterparts in Beijing, Shanghai and especially in Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province, which is Maryland's sister province in China.
The trip resulted in three business deals and two memorandums of understanding between Maryland and Anhui institutions. EA Engineering, Science and Technology Inc., for example, signed agreements that should give it a leg up in securing work to help clean up the huge Huai and Yangzhou rivers.
A role model for some of the participants was Mr. Adams' RTKL, which signed an agreement to share expertise with Anhui's main planning and design academy. The agreement already has JTC resulted in one project: the partial design of a $150 million tourist facility at Huangshan, a pilgrimage site in southern Anhui. Among RTKL's other dozen projects in Anhui are an ambitious new market along Beijing's busiest shopping boulevard and a new downtown for the industrial city of Dalian in China's northeast.
RTKL gets about a quarter of its $55 million in annual revenues from projects in Asia.
Few companies, however, are as lucky as RTKL, which was selected several years ago by a Japanese company to design a few projects in Asia. That experience gave it an instant presence in Asia and also opened its eyes to the region's potential.
One participant who was making her first trip to China was Jaye Shavers, whose Baltimore-based Maja Trading Co. Inc. hopes to export used and reconditioned medical equipment. Ms. Shavers spent her time meeting medical supply companies and health department officials.
"You're not going to get taken seriously unless you have someone opening those doors for you," said Ms. Shavers, who plans to follow up on the new contacts with three trips to China next year.
Chinese officials said Maryland is one of the few states that has mounted such an ambitious business lobbying mission. The idea behind the trip was similar to federal government-backed trade delegations, except that the companies on last week's trip were smaller than the big multinationals that travel with federal leaders.
The 10-day tour, which was a continuation of a trip to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, was organized by Maryland's Department of Economic and Employment Development. With a budget of $3.6 million and staff of 29, DEED's International Division and Sisters Program has been carefully building a relationship with Anhui for 14 years. Its staff includes one person, Jean Van Buskirk, who focuses solely on developing sister-province and sister-city programs around the world.
While such programs might seem like frills for today's budget-strapped state governments, the reality in China is that networking is the only way to get things done. The group was widely feted and got front page coverage in the state-run newspaper, Anhui Daily. The Chinese hosts treated Mrs. Van Buskirk like an old friend, with one local official joking that her trips to Anhui had made her a mini-celebrity -- far better known than DEED Secretary Mark Wasserman, who led the delegation, or Gov. William Donald Schaefer, who returned home from Japan.
The trip also underscored the value of having local expertise.
A part-time DEED employee who organized the trip, Ning Shao, used his experience as an Anhui native and former provincial government employee to set up many interviews. He also translated into Chinese a profile of each company on the trip and their goals in coming to China, allowing the provincial authorities to pair participants with appropriate local partners.
Mr. Adams of RTKL, for example, met with Hefei's urban planning institute and held a talk Friday about architecture and design. The partnership he formed Friday will help RTKL participate in China's building boom, which has turned a small town of a few thousand into a sprawling high-tech center of 1 million in just a few decades.
Maryland's relations with Anhui don't mean that RTKL or any other company is a shoo-in, but the relationship will help Maryland companies get a second look.
"Competition is absolute," said Yao Xiaopei, vice director of Anhui's Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Commission. "But certainly we will pay more attention to friends."