News
Chairman Edward Prentice, ISD Chairman Roger Cozens and Chief Executive Anthony Hyde hosted a fifteen strong delegation from Shaoxing in the Zhejiang Province (south of Shanghi) when they visited the UK in November. Colleagues from British Expertise including their Director, Nigel Peters, were on hand to assist with the delegation’s visit.
Member delegates were all from the food manufacturing, distributing and raw material sourcing sectors within Shaoxing and were on a mission to build up contacts for both professional work in China and import (to UK) agencies.
The delegation also included senior members of the Shaoxing County Economic Trade Bureau, the Forestry Bureau and the International Trade Promotion Council.
Roger Cozens who has worked in various parts of China impressed delegates with his knowledge of Organic Standards for tea growing – a market the Chinese are looking at. He also demonstrated his ability to think outside the box by providing his CV and business promotion leaflets in Chinese!
Whilst we thought the overall intention of the delegates was to build marketing contacts in the UK for their products they will now understand better the need to be advised on standards and procedures for their products to be acceptable to UK markets.
BIAC members have been offered a reciprocal trip to Shaoxing which could be very interesting as the province of Zhejiang is a very prosperous and growing agricultural area. Any BIAC member who would like to follow this up or require contact details should email the Chief Executive.
BIAC thanks British Expertise for providing the meeting room at their office in London
Anthony Hyde
Chief Executive
19th November 2007
