Video: People's Daily Online interviews Mayor of San Francisco Edwin M. Lee (2)

People’s Daily Online: We know that San Francisco municipal government has two officials in China known as ChinaSF. Can you explain to us what is ChinaSF and how do you evaluate its role in promoting exchanges with China.

Mayor: Well I begin by saying that we have been very happy and very satisfied with the cultural and economic exchanges that have gone on for more than three decades. But we want more.

There is always a thirst for doing more with China. So the ChinaSF program which is created back in 2008 and started with a very strong desire to do more business relationships with China. And as a result in San Francisco we have now five offices that are occupied by Chinese solar companies that are launching their North American headquarters in San Francisco.

We also have a number of China-owned clean-tech companies that are also located in San Francisco. And we would like more business exchanges so ChinaSF has created its first office in Shanghai, you can understand, since that was where we have the sister city. But we now have for the last two years the office here in Beijing. And we are conducting a research for a third office which should be in Guangzhou.

The purpose of these offices would be to gain more contacts with the business community and present ideas of public and private ventures for future investment in both sides, in both China and San Francisco.

ChinaSF offices help inbound as well as outbound businesses. We will assist American companies find their relationships in China and at the same time those companies from China who wish to operate in United States. We offer them not only office base but assistance in setting up their business in North America. And of course we present San Francisco or any place in the bay area to locate their offices and to present them with the type of relationships that will make them successful.

We are working very hard to do this because we believe that both China and United States through the ChinaSF relationships will be more successful if they have people understand what businesses they are looking for and assist them in finding not only the location but the right relationships to build their business.

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