Cars

US, China focus on hybrid, electric vehicles

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-05-29 11:43

INDIANAPOLIS - Hundreds of officials and entrepreneurs from China and the United States fixed their eyes on hybrid and electric vehicles on Friday, when the first US-China Advanced Technology Vehicle Summit kicked off in Indianapolis.

The summit, which is hosted by the Energy Systems Network, a non-profit organization focused on growth and commercialization within the clean technologies and energy sectors, brought together a delegation of Chinese automakers and Indiana manufacturers of components for hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles to share information and explore potential business relationships that could result in new opportunities for Hoosier firms and future foreign investment in the state.

The Chinese delegation was led by Wang Chao, the Assistant Minister of Chinese Ministry of Commerce, and comprised by nearly 100 Chinese government officials and automotive executives coming from several Chinese top automakers and vehicle parts suppliers.

In a statement, the organizers quoted Wang Chao as saying that it's "the largest delegation of Chinese automotive company executives and officials to travel to the United States".

The US participants, including Indiana manufacturers Cummins, Delphi, Allison Transmission, EnerDel, paid much attention to this summit as China has surpassed the US and become No 1 in vehicle sales.

Henry Kong, the chief engineer coming from Delphi Automotive Systems (China) Holding Co Ltd and taking a special trip from Shanghai to Indianapolis to attend this meeting told Xinhua they are going to "find some cooperation opportunities with China automotive companies."

Delphi sold its brakes-and-suspension business to Beijing West Industries last year. Delphi has launched more than 10 factories and two research centers with about 20,000 workers working for Delphi in Chinese mainland, according to Kong.

Several signing ceremonies were held at the summit, including Memorandum of Understanding on Bilateral Cooperation of Investment Promotion between china Investment Promotion Agency of Ministry of Commerce and Department of Commerce of Indiana State, as well as some strategic cooperation agreements related to Cummins, Guangxi Liugong and Zhengzhou Yutong.

At the one-day meeting, the summit will address some other topics, including challenges and opportunities for commercialization of advanced technology vehicles including cost and status of current technology, vehicle market outlook in US and China.

In remarks on Thursday's welcome dinner, Wang Chao said that Sino-US economic relationship has strong complementarity, which lays a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation, especially in the sector of new energy and advanced technology vehicles.

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According to Wang, the relationship between the US and China has made great progress with the bilateral trade surging rapidly form less than $2.5 billion in 1979 to almost $340 billion in 2008.

Great progress also has been made in Indiana-China trade and economic cooperation. In the past 10 years, Indiana's export to China grew by 543 percent, which was seven times of its global trade growth of 77 percent. China has become its 6th largest export market.

At the beginning of June, Indiana Lt Governor Becky Skillman will lead a delegation of Indiana agriculture and economic development officials on a week-long trip to China.

Yang Guoqiang, the new Consul General of the Consulate General of China in Chicago, who took his office last Saturday and attended the meeting, told Xinhua that the consulate will do its best to serve as a bridge between Midwest America and Chinese companies and find more reliable business information for both.