China Daily

Chicago hopes for more China deals

- By REN XIAOJIN and JING SHUIYU Contact the writers at renxiaojin@chinadaily.com.cn

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Wednesday that the US city expects more bilateral trade and investment with China in the coming five years, as foreign media reported that the personal goal of his visit to Beijing was to preserve a $1.3 billion contract amid China-US trade tensions.

Chicago and eight Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin signed a five-year cooperatio­n plan in sectors such as healthcare and manufactur­ing on Wednesday during a forum promoting trade and investment between the cities.

Emanuel said Chicago welcomes cooperatio­n and embraces competitio­n. He also encouraged Chinese companies to invest in the city.

According to Emanuel, trade between the city and China has doubled since Chicago signed a memorandum of understand­ing with eight Chinese cities in 2013.

One of the major reasons of the mayor’s visit to China was to preserve a $1.3 billion contract between the Chicago Transit Authority and Chinese train manufactur­er CRRC Sifang Co Ltd to manufactur­e rail cars in Chicago, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.

CRRC Sifang has built a factory in Chicago with $1.3 billion investment to assemble more than 800 rail cars for the city. The factory is expected to provide around 300 local jobs, including 200 at the factory.

However, with the US imposing a 25 percent tariff on Chinese exports, the trade tension is likely to cause trouble for the deal between CTA and CRRC Sifang, Li Yongle, deputy general manager of CRRC Sifang, said at the forum.

“According to the law and regulation­s in the US, we have to purchase 60 percent of the parts locally. The remaining 40 percent can be purchased elsewhere in the world, including China, and these parts are included in the list of goods subject to the additional 25 percent tariff,” Li said.

“We are going to make sure that those 200 factory jobs that were planned here do not become a victim of US President Donald Trump’s trade war,” the Chicago Tribune quoted the mayor as saying at an event in the US before his journey to China.

“Nobody knows where this (the trade tension) is headed. So, my view is, while the trip was always planned, my goal is to assure this (the jobs) is secure.”

Mei Xinyu, a researcher at the Internatio­nal Trade and Economic Cooperatio­n Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, said: “It would make more sense to provoke a trade war during an economic recession in order to increase local jobs.”

“But the US is not facing a recession, and a trade war could not effectivel­y help the country to create more jobs.”

He said the tariff threats by the US have “no economic logic”.

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