“I believe our company will benefit in the long run from the trade mission in China, if the investment in time is made,” said Manny Anthoulas, who represented the major IT security firm Directory Concepts on a recent week-long Victorian trade mission to China.
In the largest ever Victorian trade mission to China at the end of September, Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu was accompanied by more than 600 delegates and over 400 businesses. Amongst them, six Greek-Australians represented Victorian organisations in the areas of financial services, food and beverage, ICT, automotives, life sciences and education.
Manny Anthoulas, National Manager for Vendor & Partner Alliances, who represented the ICT sector on behalf of the major IT security firm Directory Concepts, said that the ICT sector mission was a particularly busy one, with a full agenda over five cities, including Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Dongguan.
“There were individual business matching sessions in the first three cities where I got to meet organisations from government, education, large corporate and IT system integrators that had a particular interest in our offerings. I had identified at least six organizations that would benefit from our capability and expertise that we’ll be following up over the coming weeks,” Manny Anthoulas said.
After the trade mission in China, the state government has announced that 1000 full-time jobs will be generated from it, and could include investment in the east-west tunnel across Melbourne. Vitamin supplier Swisse, which was part of the trade mission, will add 140 jobs to its Melbourne headquarters after securing markets in China.
The trade mission has also recognized the growing interest of China in Australian sport, while the biggest driver for jobs is likely to be a $200 million Chinese cable contract with The Anhui Joy Sense Cable Company.
“We also had the opportunity to be hosted by a number of large international and local corporate organizations in the various cities we visited. These included companies like VanceInfo Technologies, Hewlett Packard, Infosys, China Telecom and Huawei Technologies, who all presented their capabilities and shared their experiences of doing business in China. This activity for me was of great benefit and a realisation of the commitment required for doing business in China,” Mr Anthoulas said, adding that other highlights to the mission included the various Victorian Government networking events that were held.
“It gave us an opportunity to mingle with the other 600-odd Victorian delegates from other sectors, allowing us to prospect for doing business in our own back yard,” he said.
The trade mission is believed to strengthen links in a number of fields between China and Victoria, with more than 600 Victorian business leaders to have improved their existing understanding of China.
“I was seduced by the modernization of China since I was last there in 2007 and it was clear the entrepreneurialism was evident in all the cities we visited. But the language barrier is still a hurdle and general business culture is very different to the western way of doing things. I was also very conscious that this is still a one party communist state with a planned economy. This means the Chinese government will have a vested interest in anything that we are likely to do. There will be companies that benefit from this mission – the ones that adopt the GUANXI way of doing business,” Mr Anthoulas said to Neos Kosmos.