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Boris’s Beijing talks attract Chinese firms to the capital
Matthew Beard26 Jan 2009
Almost 100 Chinese companies are considering opening offices in London as a result of a trade mission at the Beijing Olympics funded by Mayor Boris Johnson.
The companies said they were lured by the prospect of doing business in the capital ahead of the 2012 Games.
Nine firms are already working with Think London — the Mayor's overseas investment agency — to set up offices within the next 12 months.
Among them are VanceInfo Technologies, a provider of IT outsourcing services; Alibaba.com, the world's largest online business-to-business market place; China Merchants Bank and Insigma, another Chinese IT outsourcing group.
Talks were held in Beijing between Chinese businesses and the Mayor's representatives, including the London Development Agency, which is seeking investors in the 500-acre Olympic Park to secure its legacy after 2012.
Earlier this month the Mayor met a business delegation at the Chinese Embassy in London, including construction minister Chen Gang.
Opportunities under discussion ranged from Beijing using its Olympic experience to supply the 2012 Games to potential Chinese investment in a university campus at the Olympic Park.
Reader views (7)
Companies do not do business in cities because politicians attend trade missions. This is simply a direct continuation from the previous Mayor's line that government quangos are somehow responsible for businesses setting up in London, and that therefore more state money should be spent on them. And what do you mean when you say firms are "working with" the Mayor's agency? You mean the business have received a copy of the very expensive leaflets printed by these state agencies? Or that they chatted at a trade fair? The London Assembly should put him to proof - how many jobs actually result from this futile exercise in state spending? None, I'll warrant. Anyone who knows anything about business knows that this is a diversion from offering real help to business, and that a few expensive leaflets and a chat in an overheated exhibition hall has almost nothing whatsoever to do with business decisions. It's your money they're spending, folks.
- Damian Hockney, London, UK, 27/01/2009 01:08
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Hang on, Ken opens an office in Beijing *to attract investment from Chinese firms* and gets pilloried by the usual suspects for wasting public money, Boris gets elected on a promise of scrapping them, u-turns, rocks up in Beijing and makes a bad speech and suddenly he's Lord Money and Light Of All Life? Yer what?
One has to ask, are these comments from real people who have any knowledge of the world? Were you supporting the offices set up under the previous Mayor, I wonder?
- Tom, London, UK, 27/01/2009 00:32
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He has done more in months than Ken did in years!
- Steveo, London, 26/01/2009 18:58
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Good on Boris. Now also we should finish the Olympics here off, cut the budget dramatically at least. Stratford does not need that much development aid surely!
- Johnny, London NW1, 26/01/2009 15:42
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Well done. Red Ken never thought much about working... I like Boris! Oh yes and please get rid of Heathrow it is an overgrown disgrace!!
- Phil, Islington, London, 26/01/2009 14:20
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Excellent, just what we need. More outsourcing agents in the capital to send more work offshore.
- Scott, London, 26/01/2009 11:59
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Well done Boris.
This is what you should concentrate on not relocating airports.
- Harry, London, 26/01/2009 11:43
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