A few weeks ago, I spent two weeks in China. It was a trade mission with the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment. I realized a lifelong dream by standing on the Great Wall of China. What a thrill! I also manned the Massachusetts booth at the Shenzhen Hi-Tech Trade Fair; spoke at a Minister’s Conference at that fair as one of ten from around the world; gave one of two keynote addresses at a Merger and Acquisition Conference in Shanghai, witnessed a signing of a green communities agreement; visited our Massachusetts Tech Center in the Zhjanjiang Park; visited out trade office in Beijing; toured Tsinghua University and met with officials of that school; and had numerous meetings with government officials on both the federal and provincial level. It was a busy and fascinating trip.
I have been dealing with international trade issues for over fifteen years. I have met many of these Chinese officials in Boston and have worked to establish trade ties there and elsewhere around the globe. China is interesting when you consider that their economy is growing and they have one quarter of the world’s population. There is a market there for everything. In the Zhangjiang Park, there were so many life science companies that I felt like I was in Cambridge, Mass.
There are so many opportunities in China that it is important that we explore each one available. Yet it is also important that those opportunities are mutually beneficial. They must be bilateral. But they have to be explored.
When I first entered the Legislature over twenty years ago, a typical life science company in Massachusetts may have run something like this: research was done in Cambridge/ Boston because of the abundance of research labs and universities and our hospital cluster in this area. Backroom operations such as sales and management may have been located in central Massachusetts, and clinical trials may have happened in the greater Boston area. Manufacturing could be done in western Massachusetts as the machine tool trades and cost lead to this area being conducive to those operations. Today, research and development is still being done in the Cambridge/Boston area, but clinical trials may be done in Brazil; backroom operations may be in Zurich and manufacturing may be in China. This is a worldwide economy and we either participate in it or we get left behind. I believe that Massachusetts is well positioned to compete in this worldwide marketplace with a large high tech business base and an innovative workforce. However, it takes a lot of work and follow through in order to compete and we need to do more in order to equip our business community with the tools to effectively trade with other provinces and states around the globe.
10 comments:
Dan....Sounds like you had a nice VACATION! Instead of looking to ship more of our jobs overseas (to fatten the bottom line of corporations with cheep labor) why don't you come to North Adams and look to expand here? Dan... you sure your not a Republican?
Vacation?!? Just what I would expect from you Jack. I worked my butt off over there. The jobs are headed world wide whether we do something or not, so we need to get in the ball game. Actually, we complain about NAFTA, and the Mexicans complain about the Chinese getting their jobs. The Chinese are complaining about their jobs going to Viet Nam and Singapore. Those jobs are always going to find the cheapest labor. We need to make sure that there is bilateral trade in order to make our Massachusetts skills valuable. And no one over the last thirty years has done more to encourage job growth in our area than I have Jack. That goes from being President of the Hardman Industrial Park and Director of the CDC in the early eighties to getting a science building this year for the college to train people for the new pipeline of jobs needed. I have done everything I can to prepare this area for jobs. That includes holding a seminar a few years back to inform businesses of opportunities overseas. The idea is to expand here by trading elsewhere.
"That includes holding a seminar a few years back to inform businesses of opportunities overseas." Dan..... How about the business opportunities HERE? Before you can trade elsewhere you have to produce a product and the only thing we see... is not a product being shipped overseas but the jobs that could be used to produce something. Do you work for US, and the guy in North Adams looking for a good paying job manufacturing a product, or the Chinese and American Corporations looking to find cheep child labor and no restrictions on environmental pollution and no unions?
Sorry Dan, we ain't buying your BS!
Allow me to disagree with Jack. Borders mean less in 2008 than they ever have. It's not just trade between countries, but global business as a whole.
I am as big a supporter of local business as they come in North Adams, but demanding a return to the olden days is pure fantasy. Tom Friedman's book title got it right. The world is flat.
On a completely different note, at the risk of going **way** over the line, I noticed that Dan is one of the taller people in the bottom photo. When is the last time that happened?
The world is only flat to business interest, it is still very round to labor interest! I am not advocating a protectionist doctrine but in order to participate in the economy you have to have a good paying job. Relegating the American work force to a third world status so American business can enhance their bottom line is more akin to treason than business.
So go ahead help business move elsewhere. I hope you enjoy your vacations and your pieces of silver you got. Benedict Arnold would be proud of you all!
Jack,
The seminar I held here wasn't for business to go overseas, but to trade overseas. Can we sell our goods to China? With one quarter of the world's population, they are buying everything and we need to have our companies sell to them. In order to accomplish this, people and businesses need to know how to do that.
Those are good paying jobs. Our old manufacturing base is not coming back no matter how much we yearn for it or name call those who don't. We are not going to compete world wide in a global economy for assembly jobs or non skilled jobs. That is not going to happen whether we like it or not. However we are going to compete in services (higher technologies) and by being innovative and creative in creating jobs and goods that are more skilled. These services are in demand and are well paying; much more so than the unskilled factory jobs that have left us for cheaper labor elsewhere.
BTW, treason? Many of these firms are not US firms. There is a global economy happening with instant access to communication, fast transportation, and a mobile fluid financial system.
We have two choices. We can either learn how to work in this global economy and learn how to trade and create jobs here by doing so, or we can bury our heads in the sand and deny that this is happening and simply post on the internet on how unfair it is and continue to lose jobs. The US runs the risk of becoming irrelevant to the rest of the world if we follow your course of action, or nonaction. And while you say this is not protectionist, you belittle world trade in favor of keeping these lower skilled jobs here rather than adopt to the system of the rest of the world and relearn to trade with the rest of the world. Massachusetts used to send clipper ships around the world trading with other countries and creating good jobs here by doing so. Whatever happened to that Yankee trader and that spirit?
Jack, I will agree with you that free markets mean free markets for capital rather than labor. But does that mean that emigration and immigration should be deregulated? The number of immigrants, documented and otherwise, from Asia and Central America lead me to believe that it is not an easy question.
Also, where do level regulatory playing fields come into play? Should we tariff the heck out of imports from countries with no environmental and wage protections? I think so. But how do you avoid a spiraling trade war when that happens? Calmer heads must prevail or the economy risks shutting down, just like it came close to doing two months ago over the banking crisis.
Dan is absolutely correct that strict protectionism is not an option. You are enough of a history buff to know what happens when a society goes economically insular.
Don't get me wrong. I blame greed and Reagan-era union busting for the mess that the US Manufacturing Sector is in, but I can't ignore the fact that we are only 5% of the world's population either. As technology allows other parts of the world to do what the US did so well for 50 years, we have to adjust or shrivel on the vine.
There is a balance between free-trade and fair-trade. It will take a generation or two to get there, but we've already made great strides opening up societies that were cruel and closed in the past couple of decades. Hopefully our own society can keep its head above water while the seas calm down.
mr. speaker?....did you happen to run into sen. marzilli at the airport?....how about bringing jobs here instead of dropping them off over there....
If i may butt in and give my opinion.. what happened to helping our fellow man whether that be a man from North Adams or a man from Beijing? and why should we hate on China for taking advantage of the global market since we are in the mist of an ever expanding global economy? Why should we dislike them for doing the same thing we've been doing for years?
Everything that happens over there effects our economy here, and if we don't help their economy there then we won't have anyone to help trade and expand our market here.
We aren't "dropping" jobs over there. Major corporations that the state has nothing to do with are contracting out their jobs and "dropping" them over to the places where they can get the cheapest labor. The state can't control what major businesses are doing with their jobs. What we can control is how our state's relations are with the country and how we can become a part of their trade and economics.
I say whether you're my father or not i think you're doing a good job. :)
First lets dispel the myth that we are trading with foreign companies overseas. On some level and yes some actually are, but for the most part they are American corporations and their subsidiaries that have relocated for no more a reason than cheep labor and lack of regulation and no unions. These are the ones of whom I speak!
I do applaud Dan for looking for trading partners for our Massachusetts products, but what products?...And with what company?...And what do we get in return?...And how does American Labor fit into the deal?
You will never convince me or anyone else that works for a living that the American labor force is dead and not relevant anymore. We can produce any product at a higher quality than anywhere in the world....but we won't do it for third world wages under third world conditions as American Corporate Headquarters and their pocketed politicians want! It's about time American Labor was put back into the equation when we run around the world looking for trading partners!
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