GASME News

Hunan Province Deputy Governor Meets with GASME Chairman

Hunan Province Deputy Governor, Ms. Gan Lin, met with the US business delegation led by Global Alliance of SMEs (GASME) Chairman William Spitler, formerly Director of US Department of Commerce Commercial Service's Greater New York Center, on the morning of July 15th, 2009 at the Hunan International Convention & Exhibition Hotel. The delegation arrived in Changsha to attend the 2009 US-China Business Matchmaking (Hunan) Conference.

Distinguished members of the US delegation included Dr. George Wang, President of the US-China Exchange Association (USCEA) and a member of the International Council of the US National League of Cities, Mr. Tom Means, Mayor of City of Mountain View, CA, Ms. Charmaine Shigemura, Assistant Mayor of Hawaii County, HI, Ms. Sue Greenwald, Vice Mayor City of Davis, CA and Mr. Shawn He Yuxun, Chairman of MeetChinaBiz.org.


Distinguished Chinese guests included Mr. Wang Guangming, Deputy Secretary of Human Provincial Government, Mr. Li Pei, President of the Hunan Sub-council of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, Ms. Liu Quan, Deputy Director of Hunan Provincial Department of Commerce, and Mr. Zhang Dingguo, Deputy Director of Hunan Provincial Foreign Affairs Office.

Deputy Governor Gan said at the meeting that since China and the United States established diplomatic relations with each other, an increasing number of exchanges had taken place between Hunan and various US states and cities. Aside from the sister-province/state relationship between Hunan Province and the State of Colorado, long-term economic partnerships have also been established between the following city pairs, many of which were bridged through the assistance of the USCEA:

St. Paul, MN and City of Changsha;
Chevy Chase, MD and Liuyang City;
Vallejo, CA and Changsha County
Columbia, SC and Shaoyang City
Hawaii County, HI and Xiangyin County
Roanoke, IN and Chaling County


Hunan Province and the United States have developed closer and closer economic and trade ties since the turn of the 21st Century. The 2008 trade volume between Hunan and the US reached US$1.34bn with US$1.07bn in exports and US$0.27bn in imports, representing one tenth of Hunan's total foreign trade volume. In the same year, US direct investment in Hunan was US$140Mn, ranking 4th among all FDI origination countries. US Fortune 500 companies such as Walmart and Coca Cola have set up plants in Hunan. Meanwhile, Hunan's own Sany Group, Zoomlion Group, Weiyong Great Wall, Wasion Electronics, Zhuzhou Times Group and China Power Group all have cooperated with US companies in capital, technology and/or products.

GASME Chairman Spitler expressed his gratitude to the Province for its years of support to the US-China Business Matchmaking Conference. He also looked forward to closer partnerships with Hunan and that GASME and Hunan SMEs work together to cope with the current global financial crisis.