Chamber, MSU offer business connection to China

Jim Baker, MSU vice president of research and economic development, and Brad Bodenhausen, chamber executive vice president, spoke about opportunities to tap the Chinese market.

In 2006, China was Missouri’s fourth largest buyer with about $770 million in export purchases, a 54 percent increase from 2005, according to the Missouri Department of Economic Development.

However, the surface of opportunity in China has just been scratched, according to Maria Desloge, associate director of DED’s China Trade and Development Office. The country of more than a billion people has a growing middle class, a growing taste for materialism and a head-spinning rate of development, she said.

Baker said MSU’s work in China began in 1998, when it teamed with Qingdao University in Qingdao, China. By 2000, MSU had established its own campus in Dalian, China, which now serves 500 students.

“About three years into that whole deal, we were starting to learn quite a bit about China and making a lot of contacts, so we approached the chamber and said, ‘It looks to us like this might be a good opportunity for some businesses in Springfield to at least get exposure to China,’” Baker said.

MSU and the chamber offer to share knowledge and contacts with interested companies, Baker said. The partnership has spurred trips to China for business delegations in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

See SBJ’s Aug. 6 issue for more on business opportunities in China and the partnership between MSU and the chamber.