Jobs Mission to Asia

For this trade mission, the decision was made to focus on four key sectors in Indiana: vehicles, life sciences, energy and agriculture. The format has been to engage in breakout sessions in each of these sectors and do on-site plant tours and meetings with various leaders from the host country. Today, we had numerous meetings set-up with various leaders in these areas.

The main purposes of this trade mission is to attract Asian companies to Indiana and to have them start businesses here. One entity on this trade mission, Sherry Labs, wants to introduce their services in China and are potentially considering a location here in China as well.

This is an incredibly engaged delegation. The majority of delegates either have businesses that are currently doing business in China, or are seeking to do business in China. China is an economy that is growing at an exponential pace. They are very interested in doing business with people in the U.S. China is rich with cash and has a tremendous amount of capital ready to be invested, so they do not need capital from the U.S. They plan to spend a few trillion dollars putting in roads and streets over the next couple of years.

China has great interest in our economy and our financial strength here in the state of Indiana. They were very inquisitive about how we fared in the recession, and they were very interested in how well our state has done compared to other states in the last couple of years. They do recognize Indiana as a leading state in the U.S. with regard to the economy, jobs and innovation. The leaders we've met are very impressed with our highly productive workforce and the number of colleges and universities we have. The Chinese leaders are also very impressed with our governor.

Currently, the delegation is in Hangzhou, China, a sister province to Indiana. Hangzhou means Paradise City. We have had an incredibly warm greeting from the various officials here in China as well as the business leaders. Last night, we attended a very impressive banquet with key leaders from Hangzhou where we toasted our continued long-term relationship. They had a group of young girls playing some of our favorite songs, such as Jingle Bells and The Old Swanee River.