BigMac
September 22nd, 2005, 05:01 PM
NY Newsday
September 22, 2005
Pataki: Hope for China Center in Manhattan; state office in China
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Gov. George Pataki said Thursday that after meeting with top Chinese government officials and real estate executives in Beijing this week, he is optimistic a major China business center will be located in lower Manhattan.
"I think I can say with some real degree of confidence that we're optimistic that Vantone will be locating the China Center in lower Manhattan," the New York governor said from Shanghai in a video news conference with New York-based reporters.
The China Center project being contemplated by the Vantone Enterprise Group is meant to bring Chinese business interests interested in the United States markets together in one location.
Pataki said the development of the center in lower Manhattan, devastated by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers, could mean "hundreds of thousands of square feet being taken" for new offices.
The governor also said that in the wake of his week-long trip to Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai, New York officials would soon be opening a permanent trade office in Beijing or Shanghai.
Calling the trip "very productive," Pataki said the representatives from about a dozen New York companies that accompanied him on the trade mission had "over 300 individual one-on-one meetings" with Chinese officials about expanding trade between China and New York state.
Pataki said that in his meetings with Chinese officials he raised the issues of human rights and protection of U.S. intellectual property _ copyrights and patents _ in China. He also stressed that he was committed to the United State's "one-China" foreign policy that seeks constructive and peaceful dialogue between Beijing and Taiwan.
The governor said he also sought to impress on the Chinese the need to expand their markets to U.S. companies and to increase their investment in New York and other parts of the United States.
While the Pataki "trade mission" has been seen by some in this country as an effort by the Republican governor to burnish his foreign policy credentials in preparation for a 2008 run for president, Pataki said Thursday that was not the case.
"It's about New York," he said.
The governor said that the trip was long in the planning and that he had hoped to visit the Asian economic giant much earlier, but plans were delayed after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Copyright Newsday Inc.
September 22, 2005
Pataki: Hope for China Center in Manhattan; state office in China
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Gov. George Pataki said Thursday that after meeting with top Chinese government officials and real estate executives in Beijing this week, he is optimistic a major China business center will be located in lower Manhattan.
"I think I can say with some real degree of confidence that we're optimistic that Vantone will be locating the China Center in lower Manhattan," the New York governor said from Shanghai in a video news conference with New York-based reporters.
The China Center project being contemplated by the Vantone Enterprise Group is meant to bring Chinese business interests interested in the United States markets together in one location.
Pataki said the development of the center in lower Manhattan, devastated by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers, could mean "hundreds of thousands of square feet being taken" for new offices.
The governor also said that in the wake of his week-long trip to Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai, New York officials would soon be opening a permanent trade office in Beijing or Shanghai.
Calling the trip "very productive," Pataki said the representatives from about a dozen New York companies that accompanied him on the trade mission had "over 300 individual one-on-one meetings" with Chinese officials about expanding trade between China and New York state.
Pataki said that in his meetings with Chinese officials he raised the issues of human rights and protection of U.S. intellectual property _ copyrights and patents _ in China. He also stressed that he was committed to the United State's "one-China" foreign policy that seeks constructive and peaceful dialogue between Beijing and Taiwan.
The governor said he also sought to impress on the Chinese the need to expand their markets to U.S. companies and to increase their investment in New York and other parts of the United States.
While the Pataki "trade mission" has been seen by some in this country as an effort by the Republican governor to burnish his foreign policy credentials in preparation for a 2008 run for president, Pataki said Thursday that was not the case.
"It's about New York," he said.
The governor said that the trip was long in the planning and that he had hoped to visit the Asian economic giant much earlier, but plans were delayed after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Copyright Newsday Inc.