Maine International Trade Center Adds China Desk

Sep. 23–The Maine International Trade Center is officially opening a China Desk this week in its Lewiston office, an attempt to connect Maine businesses with one of the world’s fastest growing economies. It will cover markets in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The China Desk will be run by Stephen Franck, an Auburn native who had been working as an international trade lawyer in Taiwan.

China is now second only to Canada for the number of inquiries the center is getting from Maine businesses. Richard Coyle, the center’s president, said the state needs to sharpen its focus on trade with China.

“Doing business in China is more complex than a lot of other markets,” Coyle said. “We needed someone with in-depth expertise.”

Franck, who began work early last month, said his biggest challenge is convincing small Maine companies that they can do business in China.

“That’s going to be my ultimate goal, looking for Maine companies that could be exporting to China but aren’t,” he said.

China’s economy is the sixth largest in the world and has been growing an average of 10 percent a year on average.

China was Maine’s fifth-largest trading partner last year, with the state exporting $112 million worth of goods and services to the country. That’s less than half the revenue Maine received from Brazil, its third-biggest trading partner. It’s a mere eighth of the $827 million generated by trade with Maine’s top export market: Canada.

With China growing so rapidly, however, the opportunity for Maine companies is great, Coyle said.

But relatively few Maine firms are taking advantage of this market. The trade center was unable to recruit enough interested companies to participate in a trade mission to China earlier this year. A similar effort by the Eastern Trade Council, which has an office in China and represents Maine and nine other states, also failed.

Inadequate recruiting efforts by other states, as well as lack of industry focus for the trade missions, may have contributed to the failures, Coyle said.

He noted that the Eastern Trade Council is currently on an agribusiness trade mission to the Inner Mongolia region of China, focusing on the dairy industry. A leader on that trip is a former Maine legislator, Marge Kilkelly, who is director of the Northeast States’ Association for Agricultural Stewardship.

The China Desk is modeled after the center’s Canada Desk, which has operated since 1998 from the Bangor office with a full-time director. Figures released by the center show Maine businesses had 81 inquiries so far this year on Canada and 76 on China.

Franck, who speaks Mandarin and also has worked at a law firm in Beijing, said he has spent the first month on the job meeting with Maine companies that had expressed interest in doing business in China.

“Relationships are very important in China,” he said, “and the China desk will help make those connections.”

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