Jones: Chinese visit next month most critical yet for trade hub
St. Louis Business Journal
September 7, 2010
By Kelsey Volkmann
Next month's visit from Chinese government and airline officials will make or break St. Louis' efforts to become a trade hub, said Mike Jones, who returned Saturday from a week-long trip to Beijing and Shanghai.
"Next month, I expect a breakthrough for a framework for a deal," said Jones, leader of the Midwest-China Hub Commission.
This most recent trip to China, which also included U.S. Sens. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., laid the groundwork for the Chinese officials' visit to St. Louis slated for mid-October, he said. While here, Chinese officials plan to "kick the tires" at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and meet with officials from Emerson and Sigma-Aldrich, he said.
The exact timeline for when cargo flights will start is still being negotiated between Lambert, Chinese airlines and the freight companies, Jones said.
Next month, local officials "will lay out a business case and the economic advantage of having a freight operation and establishing a hub relationship as opposed to landing the planes on a contract basis," he said. Advantages include relatively few weather delays and shorter taxi times and customs clearances compared with other airports, he said.
Meanwhile, across the Mississippi River in Illinois, a cargo test flight from China landed last month at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in Mascoutah.
