18 senior officials responsible for the technological work of governments in Guangdong Province are to visit the UK and meet BCC LinkToChina on 3rd April.

BCC LinkToChina is to facilitate a roundtable meeting to explore cooperation on technology and investment between the UK and delegates who represent more than 10 different cities. The roundtable is open to the partners and members of LinkToChina and the UK-China Business Chamber.

The group is interested in working with the BCC LinkToChina, its partners and members for international investment and technology related trade. There is a wide range of topics that they are interested in, such as technology investment, IPR (trade mark and patents), science and technology opportunities, S&T information intelligence, Hi-Tech Industrial Zone, Hi-tech Enterprising Service Centre, and Industry & Information.

The delegates are from the Guangdong’s cities of Guangzhou, Yangjiang, Jiangmen, Foshan, Huizhou, Zhangjiang, Zhuhai, Qingyuan, Shenzhen, Dongguang and Maoming.

LinkToChina has been supporting the Science and Technology Facility Council’s campus in Harwell (Oxford) in R&D incubating facilities for Chinese hi-tech companies that are interested in the UK market. In the last two years, groups of Chinese technology companies have been visiting business locations such as Bracknell, Slough and Oxford through the support of local authorities and Chambers of Commerce in these areas in strong partnership with BCC LinkToChina.

Guangdong is where Chinese investors in the UK, such as Hytera Telecommunication, Huawei Technologies, ZTE, and TP Link are from. A province that produces the equivalent of 1 in 9 pounds of Chinese GDP, with an economy similar to the size of South Korea and having been the long standing run-away export leader of China, Guangdong is one of the most prosperous economic centres in China. Dr. Kegang Wu, who was the only invited delegate from the UK to have attended the recent Guangdong CPPCC and Congress in January, believes that there is huge untapped potential for UK exporters and its technology sector in the market of Guangdong’s 104 million population.

A strong UK delegation will visit Shenzhen and Guangzhou of Guangdong in April to promote further business links with the Province.