Ravenstahl calls China visit a success
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Mayor Ravenstahl sits for an interview with English language television interviewer Nancy Merrill, of the state-owned International Channel Shanghai.
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SHANGHAI, China -- Speaking with potential Chinese investors Monday, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said he "just laid out the Pittsburgh story -- why we are where we are. We laid out the 30-year transformation."
Speaking with American reporters after a series of private meetings, the mayor said, "We extended some invites to them to come visit our city -- the discussions were that positive.
"There's the likelihood that one, or, perhaps, more of the companies will take the time to come to Pittsburgh, and that in and of itself is worth the trip, worth being here."
In three hours of presentations and news conferences with Chinese and American reporters, the mayor also was asked whether the climate of China-bashing now reaching a fever pitch during the American election season had any effect on his discussions.
"It doesn't seem to be affecting the individual interactions," he said.
At a dinner that evening hosted by the mayor, Bill Poirier, a Westinghouse Electric Corp. vice president in charge of nuclear power plant construction in China, took that argument a step further.
A contract that the Toshiba-owned Westinghouse had won three years ago to build more than a billion dollars worth of nuclear reactors in China "created a lot of jobs for us in the United States," said Mr. Poirier. "These projects created about 5,000 new jobs, not just in Pittsburgh, but a lot of them in Pittsburgh for us and our suppliers."
And, he said, the mayor's visit helped reaffirm the strong relationship between government and industry in Pittsburgh.
"Today, for example, he was talking with Shanghai Electric. There were a lot of discussions, the name of Westinghouse came up, and that gives the company like Shanghai Electric the confidence and the security to know that we're backed by our city," Mr. Poirier said. "In China government and government support means a lot and we have great support from the city of Pittsburgh, great support from the United States government. Those are things that really count here in China."
The mayor's delegation is encouraging Shanghai Electric Group to invest in Pittsburgh.
The delegation spent most of an hour-long afternoon news conference pitching the city in two languages to Chinese print journalists primarily representing Shanghai's business media.
First Published October 12, 2010 12:00 am
