Chinese delegation in St. Louis Thursday
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
April 29, 2010
Following the recent trip to China by St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and other local leaders, another delegation of Chinese business leaders is visiting St. Louis this week.
This delegation is reportedly a group of 35 to 40 biotech firms and investors visiting several U.S. biotech centers under the auspices of the China Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA). The delegation will visit St. Louis, San Francisco and the Research Triangle in North Carolina, in advance of their attending the annual international BIO meeting, to be held this year in Chicago.
The St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association (RCGA) is hosting the CIPA delegation Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon, in cooperation with the Midwest China Hub Commission.
While in St. Louis, the delegation will be meeting with regional plant and life sciences leaders, as well as State and local elected leaders, and touring the region's plant and life sciences institutions including Washington University, the St. Louis Coalition for Plant & Life Sciences, the BioGenerator, the Missouri Botanical Garden, CORTEX, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, BRDG Park and the Center for Emerging Technologies.
The delegation will also attend a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium and will tour the Gateway Arch before departing St. Louis on Saturday.
The CIPA delegation follows another recent Chinese business-to-business visit, this from Weihai, China by China's largest medical device manufacturers, hosted by the RCGA several weeks ago upon the return of the Mayor's delegation from China in late March.
These missions represent the business and commercial center component of the "St. Louis Big Idea," complementing and supporting the proposed Central USA Cargo Hub component of the overall project. The recent China mission concluded agreements with four Chinese airlines to join in the feasibility analysis that Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and the technical consultant team for the Midwest China Hub Commission have underway for establishing the cargo hub.
Globe-Democrat.com will post more details on this visit later in the day.
