Blog Day 3
Thursday, June 14, 2012
I often say that our greatest successes in life are due to the strengths of our relationships. Today, our delegation split up to visit nine sister-cities or potential sister-cities, Indiana has 22 in all. Here they will work on building partnerships and friendships with local cities much like Indiana's relationship with Zhejiang province. I spent part of the day in Anderson's sister-city, Yuhang. There I spent time in businesses and schools learning about the community first-hand and hoping to build on Anderson's successes by strengthening the relationship.
However, before heading out of Hangzhou for Yuhang, I had a meeting with Mr. Lei of Fukang Feather Group. They collect, clean, and dry feathers of chickens, ducks, and geese to make apparel such as boas. They currently do business in the Southern Indiana town of Huntingburg and are looking to invest an additional $1-2 million and more than double their workforce. As I mentioned yesterday, Indiana ranks first duck production so Mr. Lei's company is perfectly fit to grow in our state.
After an hour drive we arrive in Yuhang, which has been Anderson's sister-city since 2006. We first stopped at a woman-owned business called China Ting Group, which makes clothing for Finity and Max Studio. I'm sure many Hoosier women are familiar with these two brands. As the China Ting Group continues to grow I encouraged company’s vice-president, to look at Indiana as a potential site due to our thriving business climate.
After many serious business meetings over the past two days it was refreshing to see the smiling faces of the students at Linping Primary School. It never ceases to amaze me how much one can learn from the youth of the world. They showed me their calligraphy, computer graphics, and robotics. I witnessed groups of students playing serious games of chess, and two students even entertained us with traditional Chinese music. My visit to the school was a great way to experience the culture and observe their world-renowned academics first-hand.
To continue strengthening our relationship with Yuhang, I paid a visit to the Vice Mayor Madam Xu. She provided members of our group with some authentic food from the region and fellowship. She expressed her gratitude toward Anderson for being such a tremendous partner for the past six years. We both agreed that in the coming future we anticipate many success stories to unfold as the relationship continues to grow.
Today's visit to Yuhang was not only educational but inspirational as well. I'm assured that after my visit today as well as the visits made by the other members of our delegation that Hoosiers will benefit greatly from our future relationships with the Chinese.
After returning to Hangzhou, I spent the evening with Vice-Governor Gong. We took another step forward in strengthening our relationship by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form the Indiana-Zhejiang Exchange Council. This group is the counterpart to the Indiana Working Group on China. It will identify, develop, cultivate, and maintain long term and mutually beneficial trade investment, culture, and educational relationships between governments, businesses, and people of China and Indiana. The Exchange Council will be housed under the Foreign Affairs Department of Zhejiang province while the Indiana Working Group will be house at the Sagamore Institute. These two groups will begin working to produce more relationship opportunities between our sister-state.
This week I have had the pleasure of working with agriculture, manufacturing businesses, and now the health field. It was my pleasure to witness for all Hoosiers the MOU signing between IU Health and Zhejiang hospitals. This is yet another arena where the assertiveness to begin a partnership will benefit both the people of Zhejiang and Indiana. IU Health is a world-renowned hospital system and I look forward to the results of this collaboration.
I began today's blog by stating that our successes in life are due to the strengths of our relationships. Today our relationships grew stronger. Not just on my visits but by our entire delegation. As Indiana's economy continues to thrive and grow, Hoosiers will continue seeing more and more results from these sister-city relationships.
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