New York

New York Promotes Guangxi

Posted on by

The Greater New York Chamber of Commerce will hold an investment and trade promotion event for Guangxi province of China on 25 October 2017. Participation is free for members, non-members will be charged $25. Contact +1 212-686-7220 or info@chamber.nyc for more information and to register, or see their event announcement here.

The event is promoted by the Guangxi provincial department of commerce.

A similar event was hosted by the Greater New York Chamber in October 2015. At that time, the Guangxi delegation included six governmental delegates, six economic and trade delegates, and five delegates from the Chinese Consulate General in New York. They spoke about investment opportunities in Guangxi.

Information and image source: Greater New York Chamber of Commerce.

The State of New York ranks third among US states in GDP, placing it on the 1×3 field of the global G8x8 chess board of most productive territories of the most productive countries. In 2016, the state contributed 8.1 percent to the national GDP. This was an amount of $1,488 billion, almost as much as all of Canada produced at the same time. Guangxi Autonomous Region, on the other hand, ranks only 17th among Chinese provinces and is not yet listed a G8x8 member.

 

Open Education Delegation

Posted on by

A delegation of the Chinese National Center for Open and Distance Education visited the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (Dual University DHBW) in Stuttgart on 28 June 2017. The group was received by Prof. Harald Stuhler, head of vehicle systems engineering studies at DHBW.

With 3.5 million registered students, the National Center for Open and Distance Education is one of the largest education institutions worldwide. It is specialized on online education and is cooperating with all notable universities of China. The Center is a joint venture of the electronics giant TCL with the Chinese Ministry of Education. The Center has recently started to establish a vocational education programme similar to the German dual system through its subsidiary I-Vocedu.

Simon Zhao, CEO of Open Education, headed the delegation. Other members were Wu Shujun, Director of the Vocational Education Center, Mark Ma, Vice General Manager, and Tina Jin, Vice President of Shenzhen TCL Education Technology Co., Ltd.

The visit to Germany was organized by the former China Project Director of BMW AG, Kayjay Brix, who is now advisor of I-Vocedu in Shenzhen. Further participants were Oliver Schindler, CEO of ITW Schindler GmbH, and the former Programme Director of GIZ in China, Helmut Schoenleber.

OPEN @ Baden Wuerttemberg

OPEN Delegation @ Dual University of Baden-Wuerttemberg

Posted on by

A delegation of the Chinese National Center for Open and Distance Education visited the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (Dual University DHBW) in Stuttgart on 28 June 2017. Prof. Harald Stuhler received the group, head of vehicle systems engineering studies at DHBW.

With 3.5 million registered students, the National Center for Open and Distance Education is one of the largest education institutions worldwide. It is specialized on online education and is cooperating with all notable universities of China. The Center is a joint venture of the electronics giant TCL with the Chinese Ministry of Education. The Center has recently started to establish a vocational education programme similar to the German dual system through its subsidiary I-Vocedu.

Simon Zhao, CEO of Open Education, headed the delegation. Other members were Wu Shujun, Director of the Vocational Education Center, Mark Ma, Vice General Manager, and Tina Jin, Vice President of Shenzhen TCL Education Technology Co., Ltd.

The visit to Germany was organized by the former China Project Director of BMW AG, Klaus-Juergen Brix, who is now advisor of I-Vocedu in Shenzhen. Further participants were Oliver Schindler, CEO of ITW Schindler GmbH, and the former programme director of GIZ in China, Helmut Schoenleber.

Baden-Wuerttemberg ranks third among German states, placing it at the 4×3 field of the G8x8 chess board. Its GDP of 476.8 billion € contributed 15.2 percent to the German total. 

 

Sicilia

G7 Host City of 2017: Taormina, Sicilia

Posted on by

The historic town of Taormina, Sicilia, had the “honor” to host the G7 leaders for their annual meeting from 26 to 28 May 2017. The town was chosen to relaunch Sicily, known for high unemployment and brain drain.

This was the 6th summit under Italian presidency, with prime minister Mr. Paolo Gentiloni as the host. The other participants were Ms. Theresa May of the UK, Ms. Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Shinzo Abe of Japan, Mr. Emmanuel Macron of France, Mr. Justin Trudeau of Canada, Mr. Donald Trump of the USA, and two representatives of the European Union, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker and Mr. Donald Tusk.

Here is a link to the G7 Taormina Leaders’ Communiqué, which confirms a lack of consensus between the USA and all other participants on the Paris Agreement.

This dissensus was not too helpful to improve the international business climate image of Sicilia. The main business and investment promotion site on Sicilia is at http://www.sprintsicilia.it/en/. Their English section, however, has not been updated for some time.

Sicilia (Sicily) ranks 8th among Italian administrative regions, and takes the 8×8 slot within the G8x8. With their 86.8 billion € GDP of 2015, the territory contributed 5.3 percent to the total GDP of Italy.

 

Shandong Bayern 30 Years

30 Years of Shandong – Bayern

Posted on by

Shandong and Bavaria have been sister province and state for 30 years and achieved good results in various fields. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of their sister relations, minister-president of Bayern (Bavaria) Horst Seehofer visited the provincial capital Jinan. He met the provincial party secretary Liu Jiayi on 11 May 2017.

Liu welcomed the visit of Seehofer and his delegation. He said Shandong is a leading province in economy, culture and resources in China. Now it is stepping up efforts to transfer the old energy into the new one. Furthermore, it promotes supply-side structural reform to realize economic transformation and development. Bavaria is an economic powerhouse of Germany, also a highland of research and technology. So there is great potential for cooperation between the territories.

“I hope this anniversary will be a new start for both sides. We should deepen strategic cooperation, broaden investment scale and cooperative areas and strengthen project docking. This way we will achieve a win-win cooperation,” said Liu Jiayi.

“Both our economies are vigorous,” said Seehofer. “What impressed me deeply is the love of the people here for their homeland.” Seehofer said he wishes the final implementation of the cooperative projects and more substantial cooperative fruits to benefit the two peoples.

According to both sides, the meeting was productive. They achieved good progress in the cooperation, docking Germany’s “Industry 4.0” and China’s “Made in China 2025”.

The Speaker of Bavarian State Parliament Barbara Stamm and Shandong leaders Yu Xiaoming and Wang Shujian attended the meeting.

History of the Partnership

In 1985, then minister-president of Bavaria Franz Josef Strauss led a business delegation to Shandong. This marked a prelude to the friendly relationship between the two territories. Then vice governor Ma Shizhong and Strauss signed a joint declaration on developing sister province-state relations on 9 July 1987. They opened a new chapter of friendly exchange and cooperation between the two sides. In 2010, Shandong party chief Jiang Yikang and minister-president Seehofer signed an agreement on establishing a strategic partnership in Munich. This lifted the relation between the two parties to a new level.

By 2014, they developed a number of sister city and cooperative relations even between TV stations. They set up economic and trade representative offices in each other’s province and state. The Provincial People’s Congress signed an agreement with the State Parliament on a fixed exchange relation. Various branches of the government established relations and developed fruitful cooperation and exchanges in all fields.

Previous provincial leaders, including Liang Buting, Zhao Zhihao, and Jiang Chunyun, have led delegations to visit Bavaria. Franz Josef Strauss and Edmund Stoiber have visited Shandong in 1985, 1995 and 2003 successively. The precious two speakers of the State Parliament John Paume and Alos Guleck have also paid a visit to their partner province in 2000 and 2008. Horst Seehofer visited in April 2010.

Bavaria is one of the most powerful regions in economy that shares sister province-state relations with Shandong. Both sides valued the economic and trade cooperation at the beginning of their relationship. The Free State, largest and second populous in Germany, is source of one third of total German investment in Shandong. Bavaria has invested over 20 projects in the province, involving about one billion dollars as foreign capital.

Projects

The Bavarian state government provided great support by training 1200 talents in railway, aviation, finance, telecom, communication, and metereology. It also helped to complete these joint projects:

  • Beer Technical Center established at Shandong Polytechnic University
  • Telecom Technical Center established at Shandong Telecommunication School
  • Land Consolidation Village Renewal Project of Zhanglou Village in Qingzhou City completed in 1988
  • Weichai Vocational Training Center built in Weifang City in 1989
  • Dual System Agricultural Vocational Education Center built in Pingdu City in 1990
  • Vocational Teacher Training Center built in Qingzhou City in 1998
  • Sino-German Rural Development Research Center jointly established in 2003

All this could not be completed without the support and participation of various Bavaria partners:

  • Ministry of the Interior
  • Technical University of Munich
  • Ministry of Education and Culture, Science and Art
  • Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry
  • Dillingen Academy for Teacher Training
  • Hanns Seidel Foundation

The Bavarian state government invested over 10 million € for the construction of these projects. It also dispatched long-term and short-term experts, over 100 people in total.

The province and the free state achieved remarkable results in higher education. A number of universities established friendly interschool exchange relations. They conducted fruitful exchanges and activities.

The Shandong-Bavaria Educational Cooperation Programme Commission plays an important role in the educational cooperation between both sides. The  partners established this commission in 1993. In 2007, they even founded the Sino-German Center for Cooperation of Universities for the further all-around cooperation of universities of Shandong and Bavaria.

Image © dpa / Sven Hoppe. Information Source: www.shandong-bayern.com

Both Shandong and Bayern (Bavaria) belong to the G8x8, the most productive places on earth. Shandong ranks third among Chinese provinces, taking the 2×3 spot on the chessboard, and contributes 8.7 percent to the national GDP. Bayern ranks second among the German laender, is located on field 4×2, and produced 18.1 percent of the German GDP.

 

Scotland

Scotland’s Space Sector is Soaring

Posted on by

In the last two years, Glasgow has built more satellites than any other city in Europe.

Scotland punches above its weight when it comes to the space industry, particularly around the NewSpace area of small satellite systems (smallsats) and space data solutions companies.

It is estimated that more than 250 smallsats will be launched into space in 2017 across the global industry – four times the number of all other satellites combined.

NewSpace companies in Scotland include:

  • Orbital Access – horizontal launch provision
  • Clyde Space – design and build of cubesats
  • Spire Global – inward investor focusing on the development/operation of cubesat constellations and providing data products across marine-based sectors
  • Ecometrica – end-to-end environmental software as a service
  • Astrosat – data software service working across earth observation and satellite communications

Scotland ranks 5th in GDP among the top-level administrative territories of the United Kingdom, placing it at the 5×5 spot of the G8x8. In 2015, the scottish GDP amounted to 127.3 billion €. This was about 7.6 percent of the UK total and just about the same as that of the State of Qatar.

 

Rhône-Alpes and Pennsylvania reinforce their partnership

Posted on by

The National Institute of the Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon and Penn State University have signed an partnership agreement which organizes student, researchers and expert exchanges as well as development of common programs leading to qualifications. Both plan on leading joint research and formation projects, and to participate in scientific events.

The partnership was signed in the presence of Jean-Jacques Queyranne, President of the Rhône-Alpes region (former minister), Clayton Stanger, Consul General of the United States in Lyon, Wilfred Muskens, Under-Secretary for International Development, State of Pennsylvania, Pr. Amr Elnashai, Dean of Penn-State Engineering, and Eric Maurincomme, Director of INSA Lyon.

For this occasion, numerous events about economy, culture, tourism, higher education and research, combining “Rhônalpins” actors and the american community installed in the region, were organised.

Since 2006, Rhône-Alpes and Pennsylvania are engaged in a unique cooperation, the Region being in fact the only one in France, to be partners of an american federated state. These links lead to a closer relations in the economic, research, tourism and culture domains and will allow Pennsylvania to participate in the world-wide summit on climate and territories on the 1st and 2nd of July in the Regional Council..

Image and information source: https://www.france-science.org/Rhone-Alpes-and-Pennsylvania.html