[10 AUG
00] COVENTRY
CENTRE FOR INVESTMENT NEWS
China Visit Revs Up Trade Prospects
Coventry
firms are heading to China to save high-tech jobs – and are hoping
that investment will come to the city in return.
High-tech
firms that cannot expand any further in Britain are looking to the
Chinese market to find new orders.
They
have recently visited the province of Shandong to try and win new
customers.
For
the Coventry Centre For Investment, which organised the visit along
with Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber, the chance to save jobs is as
important as creating new ones.
Manufacturer
Excellence officer Roger Hewitt said that if jobs are maintained then
it preserves the city’s skill base and allows companies to survive.
One
firm found the visit in June so promising that bosses have returned to
China this week to follow up interest.
Mr
Hewitt said high-quality, high-precision engineering firms using
techniques unavailable in China were the ones that were hopeful of
winning new trade.
He
said:
“There
are a lot of small companies in Coventry that are having problems
because they don’t have the capital to expand. Coventry has a good
reputation as a centre of excellence in high-precision industry, and
this is what the Chinese want.
“Their
industry has come on a great deal recently, and you can’t go out
there and sell them anything. They are after quite specific
things.”
Other
work being done in Jinan, a city of 5 million which is twinned with
Coventry, includes helping the giant Qingqi motorbike firm adapt its
mopeds for a European market.
It
is hoped that if the bikes are changed to meet European safety and
environmental levels then production will start in this continent,
with Coventry being among the front-runners to host a new assembly and
distribution plant.
Mr
Hewitt said it would take time to see this happen, but added:
“I’m
very optimistic in ten years’ time it will start to happen the
other way, and we will see some investment coming to Coventry.
”We
are not guaranteed to get the factory, but the Chinese do business
with people they know, and they have been working with people in
Coventry for some time.”
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