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China Optoelectronic Industry CEO Summit

By Glenn Barrowman, Aston Science Park

Today Alistair Wilson, the Director of the UK Photonics KTN, attended the CEO Summit and we are delighted to bring you a few insights from the seminar. Fortunately this activity was in simultaneous translation.

Alistair thought that the importance of Asia-Pacific in the global optoelectronics market was emphasised at the CEO summit by a presentation from US company Finisar, one of the leading data networking equipment companies in the world with its headquarters in Northern California.

Finisar, with greater than $600M per annum in revenue and 4500 employees worldwide, has 85% of its suppliers in the Asia-Pacific region and has located its International Purchasing Office (IPO) in Shenzhen, China. This location has enabled Finisar’s purchasing personnel to be within 4 hours travelling time of 85% of its supply base.

Finisar believes that locating its IPO in China allows it to create a “real-time supply base” and enables the development of strategic long-term relationships with its suppliers, which in turns brings many benefits to for products.

UK companies on the Photonics KTN/UKTI mission are seeing first hand the benefits of having supply relationships in China and, within the short timescale of the mission, have identified a number of partnerships that should generate mutually beneficial relationships.

The Chinese government and its regional governments are very keen to do business with UK companies, as we have discovered this week. With the support and assistance of UK Trade & Investment and the influential China British Business Council, UK companies have a wealth of experience and know-how to draw upon in establishing these relationships.

Meanwhile, the UK mission was having one-to-one meetings with companies selected from their specific requirements. The good news is that the UK companies thought Kevin Leung did super background research in organising this and the young translators completed their task with enthusiasm and skill.

Tonight was fun, with an excellent dinner followed by a 10pm site visit to view highway luminaries in situ! Tomorrow are visiting an LED manufacturer, then checking-out of our hotel flying back to London via Beijing.

All that remains to say is thanks to all who have assisted us. There are way too many to mention, but I do know that the mission has been a resounding success.

Posted by Jacqueline Hewett on September 9, 2008 8:35 AM | Permalink