"....Borrowed from RB....":
By: is3371
Reply To: 483 by jmhollen Saturday, 15 Apr 2000 at 7:51 PM EDT
Post # of 485
OT:
I spoke with Paul Isaki Ph.D who is the Governor's Special Trade Representative (Washington's economy is the most dependent on trade and China is our biggest trade partner, Gary Locke, the governor, is himself a Chinese-American) I spoke to him at length in generalities about what China's entry into the WTO would mean to a company who already has licenses to retail in China. Being on expert on trade with China, he seemed to think that the Chinese government would still look protect an existing company for several reasons, and that it wouldn't end up devaluing the licenses that LGOV already has.
Conventional wisdom says that free enterprise is new to China, the Chinese are smart, and just because they don't practice it, doesn't mean they don't study it and know how to take advantage of it. Paul seemed to think that the Chinese would value the infrastructure an existing company had, and recognize that a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. Competition is good, but a free for all is not. He seemed to think that if China were to enter the WTO today, it would take other Oil companies at least 2 years to cut through the red tape and be any sort of threat. Also recognizing that with such a large market, and the stated policy of the Chinese to not open any flood gates, he didn't see any industry, let alone oil getting there fast. He thought a company currently operating with licenses in China wouldn't see any real competition for 3-5 years and that their licenses might on paper be slightly devalued, but not in reality because of what it takes to duplicate it.
I pumped him to the extent of my capabilities, I have Paul's e-mail, if anybody has specific questions beyond what I could think of, it would be of benefit to get a perspective on the big picture. |
