Governor 'gets to know' China

Nebraskan visits Beijing, hopes more of state's beef finds place on nation's menu

With a growing appetite for high quality beef, China is leading the field as the target market for Nebraska, its governor told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

On his first official visit to China since he took office in January, Gov. Pete Ricketts, 51, said Nebraska is the top state in the US for beef, "ahead of Texas since February last year".

During his visit, Ricketts raised the issue of getting Nebraska beef onto the plates of Chinese consumers and met officials from the ministries of agriculture, commerce and foreign affairs. Though no deals were signed, he said the Chinese officials are considering his proposals.

"You have to get to know the people first," Ricketts said as he pointed out that the main purpose of his visit was to "make connections" for business cooperation and expansion.

China is Nebraska's fastest growing export destination, mostly for agricultural products such as corn and soybeans, and its fourth-largest trade partner. Japan is in third place and the top two are Canada and Mexico. In the past four to five years, trade volume has doubled, amounting to $610 million in 2014, while Japan is somewhere over $750 million, the governor said.

Given the current momentum, Ricketts expressed his confidence in seeing the trade volume with China "certainly" pass Japan soon.

Ricketts said he noticed similar values shared by Chinese people and Nebraska residents, namely the emphasis on education, family, community and hard work.

Before coming to China, Ricketts and three other governors from the Midwestern US visited Japan for a trade meeting. Ricketts was the only one who came to China afterwards.

Of the 7,000 Chinese living in Nebraska, about 1,500 are Chinese students, according to the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which invited Ricketts over. In October 2007, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln co-established a Confucius Institute with Xi'an Jiaotong University.

In October 2012, Nebraska honored the then vice-premier Wang Qishan as an honorary resident.

Many people conjure up "agricultural" when they hear the name of the state, but Nebraska hosts five of the Fortune 500 companies, including Berkshire Hathaway of Warren Buffett, all headquartered in Omaha, its largest city and financial center. Lincoln is the state capital.

Acknowledging the fact that not many Chinese people know much about Nebraska, Ricketts said this cannot be changed overnight but it won't until a start is made.

"And I'm here to start it," Ricketts said.

"Nebraska is a place where we grow and make things, we share many of the values with the Chinese people, and it is a state with a lot of opportunity to grow the cooperation between China and the US," Ricketts said.

Since June 2004, Nebraska has established a sister province-state relationship with Guizhou province.

Ricketts worked as the president and chief operating officer of his father's company, TD Ameritrade, an online stock trading company listed on the Fortune 1,000, until he switched careers to become a politician in 2005.

chenmengwei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/23/2015 page25)