Sonny Perdue front-runner for next ag secretary

Former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue III, who has visited China several times, has emerged as the leading candidate for US secretary of agriculture in President-elect Donald Trump's administration, US news media reported on Monday.

If nominated and confirmed, Perdue, who turned 70 on Dec 20, would succeed secretary Tom Vilsack, who has been in the position since 2009 and who had served as governor of Iowa. The current Iowa governor Terry Branstad has been tapped by Trump to be the next US ambassador to China.

Perdue, who is not related to the family with the same name that owns chicken producer Perdue Farms Inc, met with Trump on Nov 30 and told reporters they talked about agricultural commodities traded domestically and internationally. While Perdue is the front-runner, the decision isn't final, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

It described Perdue as emerging from a broad pack of candidates, which included former Texas A&M University President Elsa Murano, former Texas US Representative Henry Bonilla, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs, former California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, Idaho Governor Butch Otter, and North Dakota US Senator Heidi Heitkamp.

Perdue was born in Perry, Georgia. His mother was a teacher and his father was a farmer. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine in 1971 and worked as a veterinarian before becoming a small-business owner.

Perdue served as governor of Georgia from 2003 to 2011, during which he made several trips to China, including two in 2008 alone.

In a trip in early August 2008 during the Beijing Olympics, Perdue participated in a Regional Leaders Conference held in Ji'nan, capital of Shandong province, when he also built relationships with provincial leaders.

"What we are finding is when people want to go out of their country and locate in the US market, they depend on prior existing relationships

that have been fruitful," Georgia's newspaper Ledger Enquirer quoted him as saying at the time.

In a trip to China in April 2008, Perdue praised PAX Technology Ltd of China, a global leader in providing secure card electronic payment systems and point-of-sale software, for its plan to locate its US headquarters in Georgia.

"PAX joins an ever-growing number of Chinese companies who are locating in our state thanks to Georgia's business friendly environment," Perdue said.

China is Georgia's second-largest export market after Canada. Agricultural crops are among its major exports to China, along with paper products, transportation and equipment, machinery, waste and scrap, according to the US-China Business Council.

China and the US have been major partners in agriculture for the past decades. At the 27th China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) held in Washington in November, Vice-Premier Wang Yang described the huge potential for agriculture cooperation between China, the world's largest agriculture producer, consumer and importer, and the US, the world's top agriculture giant and the largest agriculture exporter.

"The two sides are natural partners for agriculture cooperation, and the potential is enormous," Wang told a meeting attended also by Vilsack and US Trade Representative Michael Froman.

In the last 15 years since China joined the World Trade Organization, agricultural trade between the two countries has grown at an average annual rate of 17 percent to reach $32.1 billion, according to Wang.

He said that agriculture is one of the areas in China with the fastest-growing investment. "China and the US can strengthen their cooperation in agricultural technology, management, internet and farming and exploring the third country market," he said.

Wang welcomes more US agriculture businesses to invest in China, as well as more high-quality and safe US agricultural products and foods into the Chinese market. He also hoped that the US side will create a good environment for the exports of Chinese poultry, aquatic products and other farm products into the US market.

From 2000 to 2015, US agriculture exports to China increased 11-fold, and China's agriculture exports to the US grew seven-fold, Froman said at the meeting. "China has been one of our top export markets for our food and agriculture exports for some time," he said.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 01/03/2017 page1)