Visitors From Beijing Seek More Efficient Ways of Doing Business
Imagine running a hotel or restaurant and having to chase around for produce every morning at small neighborhood shops.
That’s how it’s done in Beijing, an industrial city of more than 7 million people.
To find more efficient ways of doing business, government officials from the Chinese capital visited Los Angeles, Compton and Irvine on Tuesday to learn more about U.S. produce distribution systems. They visited the Los Angeles wholesale produce market, a Ralphs Grocery Co. warehouse in Compton and the Irvine offices of the United Agribusiness League, a trade association.
“This gave us good ideas,” Liang Ji Ting said through an interpreter. He is the deputy director of the Agro-Forestry Office for the Beijing Municipal Government.
His delegation of seven men and two women remarked on the use of pallets and forklifts to move produce. In Beijing, fruit and vegetables are shipped in baskets, mixed in together and sold unwashed and uncut, fresh from the fields.
The delegation also plans to visit produce markets in Mexico City, Paris, Madrid and Moscow.
Agriculture is one of four sectors that the Chinese government has said should seek Western-style advancement, said Les Barkley, managing director of RJM International in Santa Ana. The company advises U.S. concerns about doing business in China.
U.S. interest in investing in China is picking up, Barkley said. It was strong from 1981 to 1986, but it screeched to a halt after the 1989 confrontation in Tian An Men square.
President Clinton has not yet outlined his stance on China. Congressional leaders have proposed renewing trade with the world’s largest communist nation on condition that it promise to improve its human rights, trade and export policies.
Undeterred, executives from Orange County companies on Tuesday expressed interest in joint ventures in Beijing.
Q Com Corp. in Irvine, for example, designs and sells software that controls temperature, humidity, fertilizing and watering in greenhouses. It could offer Beijing a way to produce export-quality vegetables and fruits, President Randy Whitesides said. As for whether a deal might be in the offing, he said, it’s too early to tell.
