TEDA CDM Seminar Planning

Yesterday was an important meeting at TEDA, the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, which is one of the three functional zones in the Tianjin Binhai New Area BNA (next to the port and Free Trade Zone). BNA is designated in China's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) to become the next major development project for China, following Shenzhen and Shanghai Pudong, which have become wildly successful at attracting foreign investment.

TEDA was created in 1984 on a piece of desolate saline-alkali land and by a loan of RMB 300 million (1 RMB = 10 EUR = 8 USD). From 1992 to 2005, TEDA's GDP increased by 51 times from RMB 1.27 billion to RMB 64.2 billion; total industrial output increased by 72 times from RMB 3.2 billion to RMB 230 billion; export increased by 86 times from USD 160 million to USD 13.8 billion; fiscal revenue increased by 62 times from RMB 230 million to RMB 14.2 billion.

I came in contact with TEDA and BNA through a civil servant in the China Investment Promotion Agency (to the right of me in the photo), who participated in a high-level seminar that I organized with the UN Conference on Trade and Development at a major annual trade fair in Xiamen last September. We were making the point that the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism can be a new driver for foreign direct investment. I met up with this colleague several times afterwards, met his friend, a professor at Nankai University in Tianjin, who is a specialist on the quality of foreign investment, and we agreed to work together to promote CDM in BNA.

At yesterday's meeting, the TEDA Environmental Protection Bureau confirmed that it will host a CDM seminar for local enterprises, so that they can learn about CDM and present potential project ideas for screening. The event will take place next month. A+B International will work with two Chinese ESCOs (energy service companies) to conduct the project screening, so we are excited about that!