Cities all around the world are becoming more aware of their power as engines of economic growth. Not only are they able to influence the situations in their own municipalities but they can have a major impact on the overall performance and reputation of the surrounding regions and ultimately the entire country.  That’s why the economic development associations of Canada’s 11 largest cities have joined together under the considercanada.com banner. With a cooperative approach to overall economic prosperity, the C-11 cities of  Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver are working together to help companies from around the world determine which city (or cities) is the best possible fit for their businesses as they expand their reach into Canadian and North American markets.

This week, members of the C-11 are here in Ottawa, hosted by OCRI, to discuss current issues and opportunities.  It will be interesting to know if the discussions reveal the issues to be more common than unique and that the ideas roll easily when more than one city concentrates on identifying solutions.  This week also serves as the platform from which they will launch the considercanada.ca brand.  This coordinated brand gives the 11 cities a consistent rallying point and a destination on the Web where trade organizations and companies from around the world can seek C-11 information, success stories, and get answers about investment opportunities.

Mike Darch, Executive Director, OCRI Global Marketing, one of the founding members of the C-11 and ConsiderCanada team, has learned from his years of experience promoting Ottawa and Ottawa-based companies around the world that even our largest city centres are viewed as “small” in the big picture.  He knows that Canada’s large cities have much more to gain from banding together than competing against each other for growth opportunities.

There is a lot interest in what is being done to attract investment to Canada.  The task isn’t without its challenges but there is a compelling list of reasons why investing in Canada is a good idea and each of the member cities contributes to this list….

• World’s soundest banking system, according to the World Economic Forum
• Fastest economic growth among G7 countries for 2011, according to the IMF
• The highest proportion of post-secondary graduates in the OECD
• Lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7
• Lowest taxes on new business investment in the G7
• Lowest R&D costs in the G7, with a 12.9% advantage over the U.S.
• High quality of life featuring publicly-funded healthcare
• A commitment to the rule of law and a strong justice system

Visit www.considercanada.com for the bigger picture.

Being from North America, I am always impressed by the beauty of many of Europe’s old districts. None is as spectacular as Cambridge with the combination of its medieval architecture and parkland around Cambridge University. My visit this time was enhanced by record high temperatures and wall to wall sun. None of the cold, wet, dreary climate for which the UK is known.

In Cambridge - a beautiful historic location

Conversations in the hallways and in the streets during my first day of meetings in Cambridge were dominated by one topic, the rather poor showing of the England Football team in the World Cup and their loss to and elimination by Germany the day before. You could not turn on a radio or TV or pass someone in the street without hearing national disgust at the game and the terrible state of football in the UK now that it had been taken over by the financial interests of club football. Sounded like the comments in North America about the NFL, NBA and NHL. Welcome to the world of professional sport.

I was meeting my colleague Terry Mughan at Anglia Ruskin University to discuss an open innovation project that we were working on with other North European cities, but our conversation got slightly sidetracked. The new coalition government in the UK had come down with its emergency budget and one item involved the cutting or elimination of funds to the Regional Development Agencies (RDA’s). The cuts would be greatest in the regions of England doing well, London, the Southeast and East England, the location of Cambridge. The project that we were working together on was likely to be affected. Terry indicated that several other projects affecting initiatives to ensure Cambridge competitiveness would also be affected.

Entrance to Robinson Hall

What turned out to be cathartic for me was being in picturesque Cambridge on a sunny day and trying to right the wrongs of the world. Terry and I got into a discussion on globalization and how public policy was still trying to desperately catch up with our post financial crisis world or even the tech crash of earlier this decade. The UK was looking to take the standard path: the areas around London were doing well, areas like the midlands and the north were doing poorly, therefore send the money to the regions not doing as well and let the prosperous regions fend for themselves. Standard redistribution of wealth. Now we were talking about one of my favourite topics. The unfortunate necessity in wealth redistribution is that you have to have wealth to redistribute.

For at last 50 years, the driving force of the modern Canadian economy has been the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa triangle. A fact of life in Canadian public policy has been to let Southern Ontario survive, it is doing well, and see how the government can help the rest of Canada’s economy catch up, often using the tax revenue from Ontario. Obviously, the UK has some of the same issues. Since both Terry and I are involved in knowledge-based industries and how they compete and survive (albeit coming at the question from different perspectives), we got into the discussion.

Both Ottawa and Cambridge are exporting regions, dominated by knowledge-based and highly innovative and entrepreneurial companies. Both regions are examples of the new economic reality: we compete globally and the vast majority of revenue is generated from exports. We have to be constantly adjusting to retain our competitive edge. We have as many or more alliances with like regions in other countries than with regions at home. The standard national policy response in crisis periods is to throw money at the regions in need and let the less affected regions fend on their own, as is being considered in the UK now. But the UK is also looking for an export led recovery, depending on regions like Cambridge.

And here we have the dilemma. You have the high performing regions battling it out in a global economy with an ever changing competitive environment. Yet, they are not to be supported. How does public policy establish the national framework that supports their Cambridges and Ottawas to achieve those export related goals at an international level and yet not have it appear at the national level that support is being given to the haves. As I talked to other companies throughout the week, this theme kept resurfacing. Strategies were being developed to solidify Cambridge’s global reputation, and yet these could be forgotten as the national government responded to regional disparity concerns. The investment needed to keep that export engine turning is often relatively small. There is not the big dollar, ribbon cutting opportunity of new factories or hundreds of jobs.

Every once in awhile, it is great to break out of the churn of daily business, and debate the larger challenges of our business. It is also great to hear that we were not the only region facing the challenge of responding to international competitiveness in the face of old public policy concepts. It will be interesting to see what country will understand this new dimension of national policy and respond.

My primary reason to be in Cambridge was to attend the Future of Wireless International Conference being held by Cambridge Wireless. Canada and Ontario were major sponsors, Bob Crowe of RIM was a keynote speaker (he gave an excellent talk, right on target with the conference theme) and we were to sign a cooperation agreement with Cambridge Wireless. We were accompanied by five Ottawa companies, Alcatel-Lucent Ottawa Research and Innovation Centre, SiGe Semiconductor, TIL-TEK Antennae Inc., Kavveri Telecom Products Limited and Teldio Corporation.

Cambridge has established itself as a major centre of innovation in Europe and Cambridge Wireless is viewed as a model for cluster organization. Our companies were there to do business, and that they did, but my interest was in better understanding the Cambridge Wireless model and more importantly, how it addressed the question of volunteer involvement and volunteer fatigue.

At OCRI, we are undergoing a review of our cluster support model. We are looking at how we can better support our exporting SME’s and take maximum advantage of the Multi National Enterprise (MNE) presence in Ottawa. Our concentration is on our high growth sectors: Wireless, Digital Media, Cleantech and Security and Defence.

Cambridge Wireless has addressed two major problems in formalized cluster organizations through its creation of “SIG’s” special interest groups. Clusters are often thought of as homogeneous because they bring together the supply chain or ecosystem for a single sector, for example wireless. But this sector is far from homogeneous. Companies will be interested in different markets, different technologies and different applications. Given the ongoing restructuring in the tech world, most companies are running lean. The most precious commodity is time. The SIG concept moves the organizing concept away from general participation to meeting the specific needs of the member.

The other major benefit of the SIG concept within Cambridge Wireless is that it is run by SIG Champions. These champions are volunteers who agree to run with the SIG. They mobilize the other interested companies and define the events and activities that will be undertaken. The role of the staff of Cambridge Wireless is then to help execute the plans that the members have defined. You therefore respond to those questions of volunteer involvement and volunteer fatigue while also near guaranteeing success of every event or activity.

There was little question that the system was working well in Cambridge. The continuing success of the Future of Wireless International Conference and the other events put on by Cambridge Wireless and the obvious enthusiasm of the private sector clearly show that the concept is successful. There is little question that SIG’s will be a part of our new model.

This particular conference was being dubbed the “Canadian Invasion”. Besides the Ottawa contingent, there were the reps from Canada, Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec resident in our High Commission in London, Wavefront from BC and RIM from Waterloo. Interestingly, not only RIM showed up in slide decks, but also QNX Software Systems Ltd.

As mentioned earlier, RIM’s presentation should have been voted best of show. When David Cleevely introduced the foreign heads of delegation at the gala dinner on the first evening, it was a near all Canada show. Although the Canadian reps, including your truly, had one minute or less, it was clear that friendly regional rivalries exist. He commented that the regional banter and rivalry was another common trait between the UK and Canada.

The cooperation agreement signed between Cambridge Wireless and OCRI was a recognition of the commonalities between the two regions. Our success is built on an intelligent workforce, an entrepreneurial DNA and a culture of innovation. Together, we can offer mutual assistance to our members and to build trade, investment and research links between our two regions.

Stay tuned as we turn words and intent into wealth.

by Mike Darch, April 16, 2010

I recall the comment by Mark Twain, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”. This phrase definitely applies to Hong Kong. When Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, many, including me, thought that the glory days of Hong Kong were over. Its importance as a global business centre would slowly fade. Hong Kong’s manufacturing base has certainly moved to China, but it has been replaced by an even stronger service sector. It serves as not only as a market in itself, but as an entry point to China and to all of Asia.

We are given talks by both Christopher Jackson of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and John Zimmerman of the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong. Both present a barrage of statistics that clearly demonstrate that the Hong Kong economy continues to grow. But the previous day, we had seen the real proof that Hong Kong is alive and well.

Exhibit at Cyberport

Exhibit at Cyberport

Ottawa has a burgeoning digital media sector with enormous potential. Our telecommunications heritage, our near 50 year history in animation and the growing number of gaming companies put Ottawa in an excellent position in the new multi-platform world. We have learned from our photonics experience, a common infrastructure platform like the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre can provide an enormous competitive advantage to our SME’s. We visit Cyberport in Hong Kong, an investment by the Hong Kong government to encourage the growth of digital media in the region. The facilities and capabilities are impressive. The digital backbone, the studios, the 3D capability all allow the companies to concentrate on the market and their development of intellectual property rather than struggling to afford capability. We are developing a concept for similar infrastructure and this visit gives us plenty of ideas. But we also learn about the continuing Hong Kong reality. Cyberport is both a business and residential development, and located on waterfront. From one of the studio areas, we can look out onto the residential development. We naively ask what the three storey townhouses cost, thinking maybe close to a million dollars, given that it is Hong Kong. Our hosts calmly tell us, try 20 times that! One single family unit is under negotiation for around 35 million U.S. dollars. Hong Kong is alive and well.

We have seen success in mainland China by our experienced companies in both ICT and cleantech. But these are the exceptions not the rule in Ottawa. It has been evident that the Chinese are looking for total solutions. Unfortunately, the success of our SME’s in the U.S. market has been by supplying innovative technology at lower levels in the supply chain. Hong Kong is building a solid reputation in China as a solution provider, putting together the technology from around the world that meets the Chinese need.

Hong Kong has a definite role to play in our China strategy. The reports of Hong Kong’s death are exaggerated. We have come looking to find paths to success in China for our growing cleantech sector. We have left Hong Kong and China with confirmation that this is a market that cannot be ignored and with a better knowledge of the tools that will bring us success.

by Mike Darch, Shenzhen – April 13 and 14, 2010

Ottawa has experienced a series of economic tremors since the mid 90’s. The reduction of our government employment during the years that created a zero deficit for Canada, the technology downturn of this century that permanently altered the global supply chains and the recent global financial crisis that was made worse in our region by the bankruptcy of our major technology anchor, Nortel.

One lesson that is repeatedly taught over time, I guess not enough study history, is that you survive change by embracing it. Fighting a new global economic order will only mean, that when you finally adjust, the transition is more painful. For Ottawa, the swing to low cost production in the technology sector resulted in record job losses for our region. 

On this trip, we visited two companies, Breconridge and Huawei. Breconridge is Ottawa-based and our largest advanced manufacturing company. It has its headquarters in Ottawa, but here in Shenzhen it employs over 500 people in its Chinese operation. In Ottawa, the company does its engineering, new product manufacturing development and its high value manufacturing. In Shenzhen, it does its high volume manufacturing. It remains competitive by moving its manufacturing asset to the most cost efficient global location.

Huawei is Shenzhen-based, with 50,000 employees in the region and 95,000 worldwide. It has 17 R&D facilities around the world, and yet in September of 2008, it began building a R&D capability in the Ottawa area. The official opening of its facility is next week. So why open a facility in Ottawa when you already have 95,000 employees. I can only speculate, but in a single world, talent.

Huawei is a new company, with just over a decade history. The Ottawa region has been building ICT companies for over five decades, with an exceptional track record in innovation, large scale integration, software/hardware integration and market adaptation. As Huawei moves farther up the integration chain, Ottawa represents a major talent pool.

These two companies and their operations in Shenzhen and Ottawa illustrate the direction of sustainable economic development. We are in a world of global supply chains and you have to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses to compete in those supply chains. Breconridge is competing by executing its low end manufacturing in Shenzhen and Huawei is competing by utilizing the telecommunications R&D capability in Ottawa. Both cities and both companies are winners.

These company visits in Shenzhen have also brought home to me the practical side of other global trends. In my former company, Lansdowne Technologies, we did proposals for many large government projects. These often involved teams from many countries (and time zones) and tight deadlines. We often joked about bringing in the cots and throwing the pizza under the door as we worked 16 hour days to meet deadlines.

Our visit to both Breconridge and Huawei put a different meaning to bringing in the cots and tossing the pizza under the door. A global reality is that cities are now our economic driver and will be into the future. The jobs are there and the cities will only get larger.

I see China as a practical country. If the jobs are in the city, that is where people will go to find them. We had a free ranging discussion with Alec Hart the General Manager of Breconridge’s Asia operation. We received a briefing on the facility in Shenzhen, its manufacturing capability, its integration into Breconridge’s operations, its types of clients, the usual. Then we noticed on the site plan that there were two dormitories, several canteens and some sport fields. I recall in my first trip to China in 1995 that the factory we visited had a farm out back which produced the vegetables for the lunch that the company provided all employees.

Things do change. Shenzhen was a fishing village of 30,000 people 30 years ago. Today, it is a modern, even by Western standards, city of over 15 million. Alec tells us that the average age of his employees is 28 and few were either born or live in Shenzhen. The jobs are in the city, but the families are back home. Most employees live on the factory grounds, sending the bulk of their wages home to the family. Wages are relatively standard, so competition for labour is more based on the housing and living conditions provided. I was surprised to learn that Breconridge serves four meals a day. A major recruiting tool is your employees telling their friends that you have great living quarters!

I keep seeing China as a practical country. You could debate the direction of change, but it is happening so fast that any conclusions would be far surpassed by reality.

It is fortunate to be travelling with our Mayor Larry O’Brien because the cities that we are visiting put the entire management of the City in perspective before dealing with the question of sustainable economic development, my specific interest area.

Urban planning in Chongqing must not only deal with the challenge of population, it must also accept the geographic realities of a mountainous terrain and two major river systems. We are also not talking of a new city but a city first settled over 3,000 years ago. The development of a nice symmetric grid system with a gently sloping underground infrastructure is definitely not an option.

Chongqing refers to itself as a phoenix. Its geographic area does resemble the mythical bird rising into the air and the City is in the midst of a major renewal as it becomes China’s western gateway. It has developed a planning strategy of a circle with two wings. The circle represents the reconstruction of the urban core and the two wings, the development of the new regions that stretch northeast and southeast.

The redevelopment of the core is not being done as one massive project, but as a series of smaller districts, each with its own designation for concentration. For example, in the west is a large area that will house over a dozen universities.

Several of the rookies on this trip had a negative impression as we drove in from the airport to our hotel in the city’s downtown. We passed through older areas of the city, many in various stages of reconstruction. The fog and drizzle did not help.

Grey fog and mist in Chongqing

Vision for the future ....

Then came our trip to and briefing on the New North Zone. This area was farmland a few short few years ago. The region could be planned from scratch and did not face the challenges of the river gorges in the city centre.

The rookies went from wondering why we had chosen Chongqing as an area of focus, to “are we in China or in Silicon Valley?” The streetscapes, the buildings, the landscaping and even the BMW’s and Audi’s all could have been in Palo Alto. OK, the Chinese characters on the buildings and the distinct lack of sun did let you know this was China, but our Starbucks addicts never had a problem!

I have commented in the past on the Chinese commitment to the low carbon environment, and it was clearly seen in two of our meetings. Some of our delegation had visited the China Energy Conservation Investment Corporation (CECIC) in Beijing and we visited their office in Chongqing. The City is a major industrial location and does face significant challenges as it struggles to meet China’s new low carbon goals. Chongqing has been chosen by the Chinese government as the pilot large city to identify the major obstacles to meeting the low carbon targets. A major question that they are trying to address is how to identify technology solutions and link them to the market needs. CECIC is developing a platform that links market need, technology and funding. This is exactly the type of vehicle that will allow our emerging companies like Plasco, Clearford and Thermal Energy to better partner in China.

Mayor of Ottawa, Larry O'Brien makes ceremonial presentation in Chongqing

Our meeting with Chongqing Energy Investment Group also proved to be fruitful. They are one of the largest power suppliers in the region with over 2.3 million households on their grid. If you look at their challenge, they are in a market in which demand is growing both from increasing population and the movement to a new level of economic importance, and yet new standards of carbon footprint must be met. They are experimenting with a variety of clean energy alternatives, including options for energy reduction. We in Ottawa are looking at many of the same challenges, albeit at a different scale, so once again there is the enormous potential for partnership in finding and implementing solutions.

As we progress through China, it is becoming increasingly evident that we are in a global economy, with nobody having all the problems and nobody having all the solutions. Partnership and cooperation are the keys to building sustainable economies.

April 11, 2010 – Beijing

It is early Sunday morning in Beijing, early Saturday evening back home in Ottawa, and I am having one of those goose bump moments that are rare in the world of economic development. In my business, it is seldom that you are able to see immediate cause and effect to your actions. Our job is to develop strategies and tactics that often take years to pay off and particularly in today’s world of global supply chains and global competitiveness. But as I sit here this Sunday morning, watching Phil Mickelson make his charge for the lead in the third round of the 2010 Masters (remember the 12 hour time difference), I am feeling that years of hard work are paying off.

In September of 2006, OCRI launched its China program with a trip to Shenzhen, Xiamen, Shanghai and Beijing. OCRI had focussed programs in the United States and Europe. It was increasingly evident that the world was changing and any true global strategy would have to address the increasing influence of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies. Our analysis showed clearly that China was likely to be our strategic third option (after our domestic and the US markets) but that Ottawa was like a grain of sand on the beach of China’s economic awakening.

How do you start? We had been warned that it would be a long journey. We were looking at a country with well over a billion people. It was half way around the world and 12 time zones away. Few of our companies had been successful there. Many of our companies looked at the challenges of culture and IP enforcement and said that it wasn’t worth the battle. This wasn’t the United States - an excellent product with a solid value proposition would not get you in the game. This was a land of relationships.

And the journey did prove long, we are now 3 ½ years later and I am making my eighth visit. Relationship building takes commitment and time. It is the first visit for our new CEO Claude Haw. The staff that we dealt with at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing have completely turned over. One of our earliest friends at the Z-Park in Beijing, Dr. Xia, retired this winter and it is our first meeting with his replacement Zhou Yunfan.  Three years ago, Mayor Larry O’Brien, accompanying us on this trip, was still a businessman in a seemingly impossible campaign for Mayor. China was a place on the map, for the companies with us, not yet considered a strategic market. Accredited Destination Status looked like a distant dream putting our tourism sector at a distinct disadvantage. My China Project Manager, Sophie Chen was just getting married, never mind preparing to return after maternity leave. Joan Sun, doing a tremendous job of replacing Sophie during her maternity leave, was still busy raising her daughter with only vague ideas of setting up her Canada China consulting company.

So why the goose bumps this morning? Our early research proved that we needed a competitive advantage and an entry point. Consequently, our emphasis on ICT and Ottawa’s emerging cleantech sector. Ottawa had a Sister City agreement signed in 1999 with Beijing making Beijing our obvious city of concentration.

What has been achieved in the last three days? Our Mayors have recommitted to the agreement signed in 1999, moving our cities to a new level of cooperation. Our Mayor met with members of the team of artisans that will travel to Ottawa next week to begin construction of the Chinese Arch that will be placed at the entrance to Ottawa’s Chinatown. It has been presented to Ottawa and Canada by Beijing and China to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the modern Canada China diplomatic relationship. Our tourism organization signed an agreement with their sister organization here linking the UNESCO World Heritage sites of the Great Wall and the Rideau Canal. OCRI signed an MOU with the Beijing Investment and Promotion Bureau to increase cooperation in investment between the two cities.

Our Mayor loves to show off Ottawa, a global example of a sustainable city. My count is that we have commitments of at least five organizations from Beijing to visit Ottawa this year to continue our discussions on building green cities, cross investment between our companies and encouraging science and technology cooperation. Not that I needed more work, but in a virtual world, it is still person to person contact that cements a relationship and moves it forward.

Mayor O’Brien is also a successful technology entrepreneur and that agenda was moved forward. Two of our cleantech companies significantly moved their Beijing agendas forward, Plasco and Clearford. Wesley Clover, a company owned by Ottawa’s most successful ICT entrepreneur, Terry Matthews, used the opportunity to build its network in Beijing and move forward its investment plans in China. Ottawa companies are being successful in China.

As a bonus, I received an invitation to the official opening of Huawei’s Ottawa R&D Centre on the same day that Huawei was presenting to a seminar in Beijing on the advantages of doing R&D in Ottawa and Canada. Chinese companies are discovering Ottawa.

I had a premonition that this trip would bring it all together for our China strategy when I was able to upgrade to Business Class on my entire Air Canada flight from Ottawa to Beijing, a rare event as any frequent flier knows. But I never dreamed that I would see a three and a half year journey, involving so many people, working against incredible odds, come together to produce the results of the last few days. It is a great feeling, even if I am half way around the world from home. Now Claude and Mayor O’Brien will probably expect an encore!

April 7, 2010

It’s early morning and the delegation gathers in the hotel lobby ready to start the real work. I would say bright eyed and bushy tailed, but the long flight and the 12 hour time difference has most of us moving a bit slowly. We start the day with the team split into two groups. The Mayor will go to the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall to learn about the history of Beijing and to prepare him for meetings with various Beijing city organizations and his visit with Mayor Guo, while the companies travelling with the Mayor head to the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.

Mayor of Ottawa, Larry O'Brien presents gift to Mayor Guo of Beijing

At the Embassy, we are met by Majid Dellah who has been the Embassy lead for the planning of our mission. Inside the Embassy, we are met by several Trade Commissioners (TC) at the Embassy. They represent ICT, cleantech, tourism and investment across China, essentially the entire Beijing TC team is there.

We are fortunate to be visiting literally weeks after the latest Party Congress. China has re-affirmed its commitment, and budget allocation, to our key sectors of ICT and the green economy. Prime Minister Harper’s recent visit not only confirmed Canada’s support to the growing Sino Canadian trade and investment relationship, but also moved Canada closer to Approved Destination Status, a key element to Ottawa’s tourism strategy. Our Mayor’s visit to Beijing adds weight to the growing relationships being developed between Ottawa and Beijing under the Ottawa-Beijing sister city relationship, signed in 1999.

It was planned that each company would give a short outline of their company, their objectives from this visit and their long term strategy in China. The TC’s would then explain individual sector opportunities. But the discussions begin almost immediately. So much for a planned and orderly introduction process!  The companies are anxious to get talking and the Trade Commissioners have been pumped by Majid that OCRI has prepared them well and they are here to succeed. About an hour and a half was allocated to this process, but the talk just seems to have started when we are joined by the Mayor’s group and our Ambassador to China, David Mulroney.

Noel Buckley, Ottawa Tourism, Mayor of Ottawa Larry O'Brien and Ambassador to China David Mulroney in discussion at Canadian Embassy in Beijing

Ambassador Mulroney confirms the enthusiasm of his staff about the future of the Canada China trade investment, tourism and science and technology relationships. The city-to-city relationship established between Ottawa and Beijing, and the backing of that relationship evident by this visit by Mayor O’Brien, are the tactics needed to implement a strong China strategy.

We get an extra treat from the Ambassador. The Embassy has been working on a new program to promote China opportunities to be launched next week in a cross-Canada speaking tour. We are the beta audience and some of the stats seem incredible. China today consumes 70% of the world’s iron ore production. Of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries, China is the clear winner as we emerge from the global financial crisis. With our abundant natural resources, good governance and a sound financial system, Canada is one of the three countries topping China’s areas of interest. The Ottawa China strategy fits well into Ambassador Mulroney’s eight rules for success with its emphasis on high level commitment, partnership, an understanding of China, while coming at the relationship with a Canadian perspective. This builds on the support of his staff in pushing our mission, promoting cross investment in our companies and leveraging our technology leadership and innovation.

A casual lunch with the Ambassador and our Trade Commissioner hosts helps our companies better understand the opportunity and how they can be successful. We are a bit jet lagged, but pumped as we begin our meetings with Chinese organizations and companies.

Rod Bryden, President of Plasco presents Sens Jersey to Mayor Guo of Beijing

Day 1: Tuesday, April 6th -

Ottawa Hello from 36,000 feet over the Canadian Rockies!

We were up bright and early before dawn and arrived at the airport just at daybreak, weather looking good for a flight to the other side of the world. It’s very exciting to be going to China, if only we had the Enterprise transporter working by now. Five plus hours to Vancouver, three hour wait and then another 11 hours to Beijing is the pain before the gain on a typical trade and investment mission. This brings back memories of long flights to distant lands to meet important customers back in the heady days of the telecom boom during the 90s.

Waiting at the airport on my just in time arrival (I don’t like to spend extra time at airports), is our mission team including the Mayor of Ottawa and his advisor. At the request of OCRI, Mayor Larry O’Brien has agreed to lead a trade and investment mission to four cities in China over the next 10 days. Travelling to Asia is old-hat for the Mayor, having visited many times in his business persona, but this is his first time to China as the Mayor of the capital city of a G8 country.

So far, we have been treated very well by the Chinese with letters of invitation, visas and itineraries produced efficiently and as requested. Thankfully, we have the tireless Joan Sun as our coordinator for the mission. She not only took care of many of the protocol and logistics items but was willing and able to call Beijing at all times of the day and night to get everything ready for our trip.

The trade and investment mission includes: Mayor Larry O’Brien and Robert Thompson, the mayor’s advisor; OCRI; Ottawa Tourism; and eleven companies from the investment, Cleantech and ICT sectors. Representing OCRI is Mike Darch, Executive Director, Global Marketing, OCRI who is on his fifth mission to China over the past five years; Joan Sun, OCRI China Program Manager; and myself, Claude Haw, President and CEO, OCRI on my first trade mission since joining OCRI last year. Representing Ottawa Tourism is Noel Buckley, President, a frequent traveler to Asia and other areas of the world whose tourism perspective is very valuable.

While in China we hope to secure a number of new agreements and reaffirm others including the Sister City Cooperation agreement between Ottawa and Beijing. We will be meeting with groups of investors looking for bilateral investment opportunities, municipal officials considering alternatives for water, energy and waste infrastructure projects and companies looking for the latest innovation in information and communications technologies.

This is the first of many blogs from the mission to China.  Look for insight from a number of participants on the trip. Everyone will have their own stories to tell!