WASHINGTON - To most Chinese, the City of Atlanta is the host of 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, the headquarters base for big US companies such as Coca-Cola and CNN, or the major location in the famous novel Gone With The Wind. But it seldom strikes to them that it is also a place to do business.

Jorge Fernandez, Vice President of Global Commerce with Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC), has seen this lack of awareness a major challenge when promoting trade ties with China, the world’s second largest economy and an important trade partner of the business capital of the southeastern US

“Very few people in China know that Atlanta is also a place to do business,” he told China Daily.

He recalled that with little awareness of the business environment of the American city, many Chinese business people he met in China were “very surprised” to know the investment opportunities in this area.

Metro Atlanta is the second fastest growing metro in the US and has the 10th largest GDP in the country, according to MAC.

Though Atlanta’s business relationship with China can date back to 1980s when Coca-Cola and the Portman Company started to enter the Chinese market, it was in recent five or six years that MAC, , in conjunction with other economic development agencies in the region, began to intensify its efforts to enhance this commercial relationship.

Since Fernandez took the lead of the international investment recruitment arm of the Chamber in 2006, he carefully mapped out his strategies to woo Chinese investors.

“All the (US) states are competing for Chinese investment,” he said. “We have to prove that it’s value-added for Chinese companies to choose Atlanta against those gateway cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City and Chicago.”

He listed five reasons to differentiate Atlanta from those competitors: the robust local economy, global access, strong talent pool, relatively low cost of living and business, and high quality of life.

With those strong fundamentals, developing and maintaining good business relations, or guanxi in Chinese, is very crucial, he said.

MAC reached out to local Chinese American communities which they believe can play some influential role in China, and “we make sure we go to China as often as we can.”

Fernandez cannot remember how many times he or his team have been to China. The first visit happened in 2004 when he worked for Delta, an Atlanta-based airline company. Then he goes to China at least once or twice every year, sometimes three times a year after he joined MAC.

In October, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal is planning to go to China. MAC is also planning a trip to China this Fall to complement the Governo’s mission..

“We always have delegations to visit China, because we understand this is the best way to promote relations,” he said.

MAC will go to not only the major cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, but also secondary cities like Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Qingdao, Changsha and Nanjing.

“We have been a considerable number of Chinese cities,” he said. “There are a lot of opportunities (in secondary cities) but not everybody goes to those cities.”

Thanks to those strategies, the reach to Chinese market is “fairly successful,” he said.

So far, over 50 Georgia companies have operations in China and about 20 Chinese companies doing business in Atlanta, most of which came in recent five years.

The big names include SANY, the largest heavy equipment manufacturer in China; Hisense, China’s major electronics manufacturer; Huawei, China’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier; ZTE, another telecommunication equipment giant.

But this is far from enough. Fernandez wants to see more trade with China and more Chinese companies coming.

“China cannot be treated just as a market. China plays a big role for every global company or any company that has aspiration to go global,” he said.

China Daily