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I wonder how many jobs this is gonna create, really good news either way.





St. Louis-to-China trade route in works



News-Leader staff • March 27, 2008



Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley have signed an agreement with Wang Changshun, vice minister of general administration of civil aviation of China, to promote a new St. Louis-to-China trade route and passenger link, a state news release said.



The memo of understanding is an agreement between the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the state of Missouri, the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County and the St. Louis Airport Authority.



The document was signed following meetings with Chinese officials and Blunt, Slay, Dooley and U.S. Senators Kit Bond and Claire McCaskill.



It is the second agreement signed by Missouri and Chinese officials as part of this bipartisan trade mission.



“This has been a highly successful trade mission and we have made significant progress in promoting the benefits of creating a new trade route between St. Louis and China,” Blunt said. “In order to remain competitive in the global economy, we must aggressively pursue opportunities like this one to create jobs for our workers, new markets for our products and economic growth for our state.”



“Our goal here is to create two-way trade with the Chinese and good jobs for St. Lousians,” St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said. “I could not be more pleased with this agreement. It raises the prospect that Lambert could be not only a freight hub but a passenger hub for the Chinese. We really couldn’t ask for anything more.”



The memo states there is agreement among officials that, given St. Louis’ location at the center of the United States, Lambert-St. Louis International Airport can become a potential center for Chinese airfreight and passenger flights.



The agreement includes a joint study to assess the potential of Lambert becoming a Chinese airfreight and passenger hub, and the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County becoming a commercial base for expanded two-way trade, exchanges and investments between China and Missouri and the Midwest region.



A joint group will be established to conduct the study which is to be completed within six months.



As part of the agreement, a joint delegation composed of Air China Cargo and relevant departments of the Civil Aviation Administration of China will visit Missouri to examine the potential of achieving these objectives.



Blunt also signed an agreement with the Investment Promotion Agency and the Trade Development Bureau to lay the groundwork for making St. Louis a possible transportation hub for trade with China.



The trade mission is a follow-up to the visit to St. Louis last February of Zhou Wenzhong, China’s ambassador to the United States. That visit was the first by a Chinese ambassador to St. Louis in memory. During his two days here, Zhou received briefings on the area’s transportation assets and from executives at such companies and organizations as Monsanto, Pfizer, Bunge North America, Washington University, Webster University, the University of Missouri, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the Danforth Plant Science Center and others.



http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 3/80327027

Good news. Everybody Wang Chung tonight!!

Everybody Wang Changshun tonight?

Goat is this new company's first employee. Good ol' PR dude!

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!



More information/articles:





ST. LOUIS POST DISPATCH:



http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/politi ... -in-china/



http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/busine ... argo-deal/







AIR CHINA INFORMATION:



Passenger Plane:







Cargo Plane:







On the web:



http://us.fly-airchina.com/US/index.html



WIKI INFO:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_China

Those no vision small time @&$@&$ can eat their words. No way we get this without the new runway.

Call me a pessimist if you will, but I would not hold my breath on the passenger element of this concept ever coming to fruition. Being a Star Alliance member, the only domestic feed viable is United/US Airways under current constraints. There would have to be major reorganization in the works.

St. Louis needs to turn it around

I agree this is a great deal - HUGE!



But, STL is already agreat city and has turned around. This deal wouldn't be happening otherwise.



Just another great development.

Implying that this is a turnaround is implying that St. Louis is a backwards place. I don't necessarily think St. Louis is a backwards place....its just that we continue to progress at a turtle's pace in the wrong directions. I would rather see us go full speed in a planned and thought out direction, then if it turns out to be wrong we can learn from it and go in another direction. Most St. Louisans are scared of progress, because our leaders rarely show initiative, good planning, and constantly let us down. Plan in simple..... this area needs better leadership and politicians that are not "politicians", but citizen that care about St. Louis like the people on this forum.

goat314 wrote:here ya go RBB



http://www.gov.mo.gov/cgi-bin/coranto/v ... l=newsitem

Apologies for the late reply - thanks!



-RBB

This really is outstanding news.



I'd love to see us build on this and establish similar agreements with additional countries as well.

^I'm sure if this China deal is successful, which I don't see why not. Many other developing countries will probably want to reach an agreement too. I would love to see all of the Asian Tigers fall in line after China too (Singapore and South Korea are strong economies and I'm sure they want to infiltrate the American market). St. Louis really has the potential to do something big with this. I would like to see local politicians go after developing countries like India and Brazil after this deal with China takes off. The article said this deal is going to create hundreds of jobs in the St. Louis area, but I'm sure that is an underestimate if we become a major freight hub. With the world moving towards globalization and all of the manufacturing getting shipped overseas, St. Louis needs to continue to make deals like this in order to sustain itself as a major metropolitan area. Cant let the people on the coasts have all the fun .

phoaddict wrote:

Billkn wrote:
OH NO!! NOT REORGINIZATION!!! that means....change

It's more than reorganization. Much much more. You can't just plop down an Asian 'hub' in the middle of the continental US that can't even support O&D European services. It would take a massive redevelopment of the Air China routing and business structure to make it feasible. The only Air China alliance is Sky Team, which would funnel passengers via US and United. Neither have the structure in place to provide that support. There is very valid reasoning for the multitude of Asian flying done from the west coast. The cargo element has potential, the passenger aspect is very lofty thinking.

^ Maybe the city leaders should support immigration of educated Chinese to the St. Louis area. I think we have about 50,000 Asians in the area and it is a growing community, very fast growing at that. Our low cost of living and slower Midwestern pace would be attractive to many new immigrants, but city leaders rarely play on this fact. Look at what the Bosnians have done for the city of St. Louis and the region as a whole. This area is in much need of diversity of all kinds and maybe this is the kind of deal that might cause immigration. Who knows!

goat314 wrote:^ Maybe the city leaders should support immigration of educated Chinese to the St. Louis area. I think we have about 50,000 Asians in the area and it is a growing community, very fast growing at that. Our low cost of living and slower Midwestern pace would be attractive to many new immigrants, but city leaders rarely play on this fact. Look at what the Bosnians have done for the city of St. Louis and the region as a whole. This area is in much need of diversity of all kinds and maybe this is the kind of deal that might cause immigration. Who knows!

The STL Asian population is estimated to be around 75,000 with the current figures I have. Compared with Chicago's 400,000 estimated Asian population or even LA's estimated 2 million Asian population STL doesn't compare! I am hopeful we see more Asians come here, but I noticed a recent trend with a few friends of mines. They all say their aren't enough Chinese here, and they rather be in California because there are more Chinese and much better preserved Chinese culture there. A lot of them found jobs and moved to LA, SF, even Seattle. We need to get this out of their minds. STL should have never razed the old Chinatown 'hop alley' for Busch Stadium II back in the '60s. We would've had a Chinatown on a smaller scale to that of Chicago's.



The arrogance that the City of University City has against Asians calling a section of Olive Chinatown is a different issue. However, from what I heard from people I know is that African Americans in that area are afraid of losing their neighborhoods and businesses to Asians and see them as a threat. A lost opportunity to promote that area and bring tourism and business from outside the region. This region people need to work together not against each other. I am optimistic we'll see more Asians immigrate here, and this certainly will help with that, but at least STL and States leaders are reaching outside the box and looking to China.

75,000 isn't that bad for a insular city the size of St. Louis, but I would agree that University City is very ignorant and arrogant no letting them officially call it Chinatown. Its only a matter of time before the Chinese takeover that whole section of Olive anyway. I'm sure they will get their way soon, but it does make University City look ignorant and out right racist. The fact that the Blacks in that area are one of the main opposing groups just shows that prejudices is one of the main things holding this region back. Anybody with half a brain should know that business would trickle out to other businesses in the area no mater what their race was. I would like to see the Chinese push to recreate a hop valley downtown. Hey why don't we just break up that Ballpark Village land in downtown St. Louis and bring back a street grid, we could give different ethnic groups incentives to recreate a "little (insert nationality)" Wow that would be a great moment in St. Louis history.

guess I'm ignorant, but I don't see how U. City is being arrogant....

Lets 360 here.



Keep this thread focused on this deal. The city (and state) is going to thoroughly benefit from this.



If you wish to talk about St. Louis Asian Community / Chinatown go to this thread:



All Things Asian (Asian Cultures in St. Louis)

http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?t ... ight=asian

Excellent. How can they transport cargo without cargo planes? Looks like an opportunity to sell more Boeing cargo planes! China wants to start getting into the aerospace business but methinks that may take them 10-15 years to be somewhat competitive.

EXACTLY.



This truely IS a big deal!

I'm curious about this -- what sorts of cargo are regularly shipped from China to the U.S. by airplane? Seeing as how cost of shipping by air is something like 20x the cost of shipping intermodally (ship/train/truck), what kinds of cargo would be going through Lambert?