Newsom back from China already?

Newsom's trip on the 10 of November to China was all over the web (if you know where to look), and it seems he's back already.

With good results though, since the China Desk Chinese counterpart was opened in Shanghai.

The goal, according to the Bizjournal San Francisco edition article is "a reciprocal relationship that benefits both sides" (quoting Newsom, of course), where incentives such as tax breaks, workforce developments, help setting up, finding real estate, in short, implementing an infrastructure of services, will get Chinese companies decide to move to San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Important info : the China Desk is no longer called the China Desk - its new name is ChinaSF Did not see that one coming! Guess I should change the name of my blog =(. Ooh wait, I can't.

In other news, new facts about the China Desk ... sorry ChinaSF :

• Ginny Fang will head the ChinaSF office in San Francisco. Ms. Fang was until recently a consultant to the City Hall on economic and workforce issues.
• Her advisory committee will include Assesor-Recorder Phil Ting (cf. previous post) as chair; "Mark Edmunds of Deloitte, Supervisor Carmen Chu, Arthur Gensler of Gensler architecture and many other well-known Bay Area business leaders."
• Funding, unlike the Chigago one (which has yet to see real results apparently, despite the hiring of John Thomson,English- and Mandarin-speaking former State Department diplomat and as such lauded expert in US-China Relations), will be entirely private, and will come from companies such as Deloitte & Touche (who already has several China Desks, such as the Israeli China Desk for instance), Barclays Global Investors, HOK, the law firm K&L Gates, Warburg Pincus, Gensler, United Commercial Bank, Stanford Hotels Group.
  Budget for the next three years : $1.5 million (only half funded yet)

Positive results already?

Newson has proudly announced at the opening ceremony two Chinese companies planning to locate to San Francisco. Trina Solar, a public company listed with the New York Stock Exchange, with 5,000 employees that manufactures solar modules, will open an office in the city in 2009 for US operations. China Daily, a national English-language daily newspaper in China, will also open its first West Coast Bureau in San Francisco. And... ambitious goals : "If we can hit that elusive tipping point and get enough Chinese companies to sign up with us," said Cohen [director of San Francisco's Office of Economic and Workforce Development], "in 10 or 15 years San Francisco really will be the North American gateway for China's business."

Looks like the project is starting out well...