Follow-up to my post #7506 -- Welcome to the Transpacific Era's brave new world....
November 6, 2001
THE WORLD
Chinese Firms See U.S. as Land of Opportunity
Trade: Some companies are buying American businesses and their know-how at a discount.
By EVELYN IRITANI, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Neither the collapse of the technology bubble, the slowing economy nor even a terrorist attack can dull Li Yuanhao's enthusiasm for investing in the United States.
Li is one of several investors from China who see an opportunity to buy U.S. technology and management expertise at a discount.
At the moment, the money involved is only a trickle, compared with the flood of higher-profile investments that came from Japan in the boom years of the 1980s or from Europe particularly during the tech bubble of the last five years. Nevertheless, Chinese firms have money to spend and an incentive to go abroad because their markets will become crowded after China joins the World Trade Organization this week and is forced to open its borders to technologically advanced foreign companies.
"Chinese companies have to decide whether they want to be aggressive and come out of China to get new technologies or sit there passively and be eaten by foreign competition," said Li, who is overseeing the U.S. expansion for Holley Group, China's largest producer of electric power meters. He has bought three U.S.-based firms this year and soon will move to larger quarters in Redwood City, Calif.
Hard numbers on Chinese investment in the U.S. aren't available because government figures lag by several years and much of the mainland Chinese money coming to the U.S. is diverted through Hong Kong or third-party countries. But interviews with government officials and executives such as Li show that Chinese investors are a bright spot in an otherwise bleak U.S. landscape of plant closures and job cutbacks, particularly in the technology arena.
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latimes.com |
