SelectUSA round 2 gears up

Vinai Thummalapally, executive director of SelectUSA. Photo provided for China Daily.

As the United States federal government prepares for its second SelectUSA Investment Summit to woo more foreign direct investment, it hopes that China will still be represented with the largest delegation as it did in the first summit in 2013.

Vinai Thummalapally, executive director of SelectUSA, a US government-wide program to promote and facilitate business investment in the US, dismissed the notion among some people that Chinese investment is not welcomed in the US by pointing to the fact that the average growth rate of Chinese FDI in the US was the highest in the last five and six years and the Chinese delegation of 100 companies to the first SelectUSA Investment Summit two years ago was the largest.

"So the facts are Chinese companies find it very attractive because the markets for their products and services are here," he told China Daily on Tuesday.

In his view, the growing US economy of now $17 trillion is an ideal place for Chinese exports. "Chinese companies see it. Chinese companies are very interested in the US market," he said.

"We look forward to welcoming the Chinese delegation in March. We expect it to be No 1 again," he said of the upcoming March 23-24 summit to be held in Washington.

US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker has announced that the second SelectUSA Investment Summit will double in size.

Thummalapally emphasized that the messaging to Chinese investors is very important. "The message is that we are absolutely welcoming Chinese, no question about it," he said.

He believes that the politics about the Chinese investment will finally go away, noting that it used to be targeting Japan and later the Middle East and now China.

Thummalapally, who led a US delegation on a road show to China last May, said he will go to China again this year with an even larger delegation.

Chinese companies invested a record $14 billion in FDI in the US in 2013,according to New York-based Rhodium Group, which tracks Chinese FDI in the US.

And during the first three quarters of last year, Chinese FDI in the US was $6.56 billion. Several big projects, such as the $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Lenovo and $1.95 billion purchase of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York by Anbang are in the pipeline.