UN Wants to Do Business with China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, June 05, 2002

UN Wants to Do Business with China

The United Nations contains tremendous commercial opportunities, but in this regard, Chinese enterprises are lagging far behind other countries. The UN Purchase Department and the US-China Business Council jointly held a seminar titled "UN Purchase v. China" recently in New York to help Chinese enterprises know more about its purchase business.

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The United Nations contains tremendous commercial opportunities, but in this regard, Chinese enterprises are lagging far behind other countries. Many enterprises have missed these opportunities for lacking knowledge about the UN purchase business. To remedy this, the UN Purchase Department and the US-China Business Council jointly held the seminar titled "United Nations Purchase v. China" in New York. Following is the report sent back by People's Daily special correspondent He Hongze stationed in the United Nations.

In people's impression, the United Nations is a meeting place, but few people know the United Nations is also a huge market. After attending this seminar, representatives and responsible members of more than 50 Chinese companies in the United States said, "the business opportunity of the United Nations is really great!"

Annual US$3 Bn Worth of Business Opportunity Lost to Others for Lack of Understanding

The annual volume of purchase by the United Nations and its main agencies reaches as high as US$3 billion, more than the annual volume of imports of many UN member countries. There are 10,000 kinds of commodities and services purchased including the larger ones such as the means of air transport and the smaller ones like stationery and pieces of paper. The contents of purchase, aside from the UN office equipment, articles for peace-keeping groups, include aid materials for developing countries and regions, and articles for the protection of women and children.

Most of the orders for goods have been taken away by developed countries. Among the 5,795 UN designated suppliers, only 79 are Chinese suppliers whose volume of goods supply is less than 0.1 percent of the UN total volume of purchase, a figure far lower than that of India, Turkey and some other developing countries. Head of the service section of the UN Purchasing Department talked about Chinese products with deep feeling. He cited an example when he talked with the correspondent. The office equipment pieces of various agencies of the UN Headquarters were provided by an American stationery chain store, but many of the commodities it supplied were imported from China. As a consequence, the major profits were earned by this company, whereas the Chinese enterprises which produced these stationery gained not much benefit. The said section chief said: We'll help the Chinese realize that the United Nations is a buyer with great potential, and the United Nations welcomes Chinese enterprises.

Chinese Enterprises Going a Long Way to Seek Advice

Many Chinese paid a special trip to the UN to attend the two-day seminar, this reflects that Chinese enterprises have cast their eyes at this vast market. At the seminar, the director of the UN Purchasing Department personally explained to representatives of Chinese enterprises about "how to do business with his purchasing department, he gave a detailed introduction to UN's purchasing demand, how to become UN's supplier, as well as UN's purchasing decision-making mechanism. The UN Children's Fund, Population Fund, the Development Program and Project Service Office all gave separate introductions to their businesses and purchasing demands.

Representatives of Chinese enterprises showed keen interest in this as they incessantly asked questions on related business. On the second day of the seminar, Chinese enterprises, based themselves on their own products, had an exchange with specific UN purchasing units, exploring goods-supply possibility. Because there were too many applicants, the UN Purchasing Department could not but extend the time for substantive talks for one more day, many companies submitted their materials during the seminar. The Tianjin Global Magnetic Card Company and the Guangxi Yulin Diesel Engine Equipment Manufacturing Company had successfully obtained the qualifications of UN designated suppliers. The said departmental director told the correspondent: Many of Chinese commodities are strongly competitive on the international market whether in terms of quality or price. We hope Chinese entrepreneurs will be familiar with our purchasing procedures and become our suppliers.

Join in UN Purchase to Gain 'Green Card' for Advance to International Market

The Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations plays a key role in sponsoring this seminar, Minister Huang Xueqi in charge of this work said while speaking about the matter with the correspondent, "The Chinese enterprises do not understand UN purchase, the UN Purchasing Department does not understand Chinese enterprises, our work is to energetically promote mutual understanding between the two."

Yao Dingkang, president of the US-China Business Center, talked about his views with the correspondent, he held that China's export volume had accounted for 4 percent of the world total, and it had more than 50,000 export enterprises, many of which could meet the standard for being UN designated suppliers, so long as some of these enterprises apply for being UN designated suppliers, China's share in the UN purchase can be greatly raised.

Yao Dingkang said the annual business opportunity offered by UN purchase was actually far more than US$3 billion. Because 86 of the UN member countries sought sources of goods through the UN purchasing data base, their purchase could reach US$20 billion annually. Becoming UN designated suppliers is a short cut to enter the markets of these countries, as well as a "green card" for Chinese products to advance toward the international market.

In addition, participating in the UN purchasing activities is greatly beneficial to Chinese enterprises. For example, they can learn standardized international commodity transaction; they can greatly improve their images, with the brand of UN designated suppliers, they can be given priority consideration in large foreign enterprises' purchases, so this is of great help to expanding enterprises' business opportunities in various countries. In addition, since the United Nations gets in contact with the suppliers through the network, the enterprises' e-business process can be speeded up.

We Can Lose No More Time

To further help more Chinese enterprises to become UN designated suppliers, the US-China Business Council is planning to do more work. For example, website of the UN purchase be translated into the Chinese language and be published through the website of the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Economic Cooperation, so that all Chinese enterprises can conveniently obtain UN purchasing information. They are also prepared to compile UN related purchase materials and concrete operational method into books and provide them to Chinese enterprises. In addition, the business council will further help Chinese enterprises to engage in competitive bidding in the United Nations and raise the proportion of winning the bidding.

Minister Huang Xueqi disclosed that in the latter half of this year, Chinese Permanent Mission to the United Nations would invite officials of the Purchasing Department and of major UN agencies to Shanghai Municipality, and Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to hold seminars there, it is believed that more Chinese enterprises will participate in UN purchasing activities.

Some pieces of good news have come from home these few days. Enterprises from Shanghai, Inner Mongolia and Shandong which participated in the seminar, got in touch with the chambers of commerce after their return home, they said that "We shouldn't wait any more", we should not only apply for becoming UN designated suppliers ourselves, we should also organize other enterprises to come to apply as well.

Chinese enterprises have come to realize this tremendous business opportunity, and they are seizing this chance. Given this, board Chairman Mr. Yao Zong of the US-China Business Center is quite optimistic about the prospect for China to do business with the United Nations, he predicts that in the not too distant future, China will certainly become an important partner of UN purchase.

By People's Daily Online

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