After Riordan’s Wooing, Shanghai Plans Trade Office
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LOS ANGELES — The city of Shanghai, which Mayor Richard Riordan visited over the weekend, will open its first foreign trade office here later this year, aides to Riordan announced Wednesday.
On Sunday, Riordan addressed a business gathering in the booming city in southern China. There, Riordan touted Los Angeles’ growing economy, its cultural institutions and its expanding opportunities for trade.
Riordan encouraged his Chinese hosts to consider opening a trade office in Los Angeles, noting that Shanghai already is Los Angeles’ biggest trade partner in China. Forty percent of the goods unloaded at the Port of Los Angeles come from China.
“With our flourishing economy and the strength of the Port of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles International Airport, there has never been a better time to do business in Los Angeles,” Riordan said in a letter to the Shanghai Foreign Investment Development Board.
Deputy Mayor Ann D’Amato said Riordan and his staff have offered to help their Shanghai counterparts find space for a Los Angeles office. One possibility, she said, is the World Trade Center downtown.
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