This is China! BLOG

“Haiyan’ed” in Shanghai

I’ve this theory - neigh, experience - that local government officials are only interesting AFTER they’ve had a few beers to drink chased down by a couple shots of fire water (bai jiu). They may even need to belt out a couple lines of a favorite Deng Li Jun song during a KTV session to really loosen up. At least, that’s what the officials of the Haiyan County Economic Development Zone need. For the first time in my years in China eating and drinking with government officials I thought I was going to die … of boredom: such is the curse of government regulations that bar officials from drinking anything stronger at lunch than orange juice and spring water.

To be fair, I think that by lunch time the day of the conference, “The Battle for the Bridge: Industrial Investment in Haiyan,” the Haiyan officials were exhausted. The Sinomedia group, publishers of the China Economic Review, had sponsored the event September 17th. When I had walked into the lobby of the Hyatt on the Bund to register as a speaker for the event, three officials from the Zone assaulted me at the check-in table - before I’d even delivered my name and picked up my conference badge. Another two administrators from the Haiyan Promotion Bureau tackled me as I walked down the central aisle to take a seat. Just as I was able to limp to my chair another three buzzed me. Then, while as I was growing convinced there were as many local government officials as attendees at the conference, one of the government representatives that had already interrogated me returned to introduce me to the Big Boss of the Zone, who looked as though he wanted to become acquainted with me about as much as I with him.

Eventually, I presented my keynote speech “Yangtze River Economic Integration: Infrastructure Development Trends.” Afterward, a Sinomedia representative gave some of the more salient points about Haiyan county that will increasingly make it an attractive target for investment: it lies at the foot of the newly-opened Hangzhou Bay Bridge, on the Shanghai side of the Bay in Zhejiang Province; it has a great deal of land available for investment at nearly 40% the cost of what one would find in Shanghai and Suzhou; and its location makes it a prime base for the expansion of the logistics industry, which is being hard-pressed to find land in Shanghai and eastern Jiangsu province. A representative from a German company then delivered a talk on the reasons it had chosen to invest in Haiyan and some of its experiences in the area. Finally, a panel that involved all the speakers and Directors of the Zone answered questions from the audience.

Lunch was delicious but excruciating: a bacon and greens salad with soft boiled egg; a crab bisque soup; broiled salmon followed up with an apple tart and ice cream. And six really boring guys from the Haiyan government. And a German. Thank goodness for the German. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had anyone but the mannequins at the table with whom to chat. There was one five-minute interval during which conversation around the table picked up, with the discussion of the merits of watching downloaded pirated movies versus viewing bootleg DVDs. Everyone considered the quality of Russian movie copies to be the worst, followed by Thailand. Germany’s copies, though, were top quality, all agreed (much to the German’s satisfaction).

I’m confident Haiyan will develop well and develop quickly over the next five years. It is an investment frontier where there are few frontiers remaining in the Yangtze River Delta. Now if only they can get their government representatives to be as interesting.