Oregon official: We welcome Chinese investors

"We have been in the implementation of favorable policies to attract more investment from Chinese enterprises and individuals," Peter Courtney, the president of Oregon State Senate, told People's Daily Online on Sept. 29.

According to Courtney, the trade volume between China and Oregon has reached over 4.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, representing a 36 percent annual growth. Surpassing Canada in 2008, China is now Oregon's largest trade partner. "China has always been our most important partner. We expect to deepen co-operations with China in our traditional advantage areas in tourism, shopping, IT industry, green energy and agriculture," Courtney said in Portland, the largest city in Oregon where China's San Francisco Consulate General held a National Day reception.

Located on the northwest Pacific coastal region of the United States, Oregon is a state with intensive high-tech companies, including the Intel research center. "The high-tech industry output value accounts for one-third of the state's total exports," Courtney said.

Oregon is also the origin of the sportswear brand Nike. Data shows that more than 30 percent of Nike's footwear products and more than 40 percent of the apparel products are now produced in China.

"Oregon State has a long relationship with China," Dennis Richardson, a state representative from Jackson and Josephine counties, said that as early as the gold rush time in the 1850s, a large number of early Chinese immigrants inhabited in Oregon. So, Oregon is one of the states in America that connects with China at the earliest time.

"For quite a long time, we have always attached importance to the development of economic and trade ties with China." According to Courtney, Oregon established sisterhood relationship with Fujian Province in southeast China in 1984. Over the past 20 years, economic and trade exchanges between the two provinces developed rapidly. Oregon also set up a "Sino-US Center for Sustainable Development" in Beijing, which aims to promote researches and co-operations in terms of environment, technology and economy.