JPost: Business: Complementary interests
10/11/2012 22:33–CHANGZHOU, China – The complementary forces of yin and yang play a cardinal role in Chinese philosophy, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear Israel and China – despite the huge disparity in size between the two countries – described as two partners coming together to form a bigger whole.
“Israel is a state full of innovation,” noted Lu Qiuming, the Communist Party secretary-general of the Wujin Economic Zone (WEZ) in the city of Changzhou, speaking to a group of Israeli journalists at a recent press conference here. “We realize that Israeli companies lack the capacity for mass production due to the small size of the country, but are very strong at innovation. China certainly has the mass but, at the moment, we lack the spirit of innovation.”
Or, as Jiang Pengui, the deputy chairman of the Changzhou’s Science and Technology Bureau put it, “We think we need more innovation and Israel needs to export innovation, so we have a complementary interest.”
And so the WEZ is actively looking for Israeli companies to join the eight that are already active in this area, setting up a joint investment initiative between Changzhou and a number of Israeli investors – the Catalyst private equity fund, the Cukierman and Co. Investment House and the PT L Group – specifically designed to attract Israeli companies to Changzhou, a city of 4.59 million people, and its economic zone in the Wujin district of the city.
Situated in the Jiangsu province at the Yangtze River Delta, Changzhou is located midway between Shanghai (160 kilometers to the east) and Nanjing to the west. In the past it was famous for its textile industry, but is now looking to move away from old, traditional industries – hence the establishment in 1996 of the Wujin Economic Zone.
As part of its technology drive, the city set up the Changzhou Science and Education Town in Wujin, and within a decade this cluster of one university and five vocational colleges has grown to comprise 76,000 students and 89 R&D institutes, incubating some 594 hi-tech enterprises.
One Israeli company about to begin work on the campus is the Chinese branch of the John Bryce IT training company, owned by the Matrix Group, one of Israel’s leading IT companies, and the PTL Group…Read More>>
