[School Post] - Hangzhou High Tech Zone Visit

Well, it is Saturday morning....our last day in China. Quick updates:

We visted the Hangzhou High Tech Zone (HHTZ) office www.hhtz.gov.cn and got a great presentation from Mr. Han Gang. Basically, Hangzhou is a "Silicon Valley" of Shanghai. Any high tech company that wants to set up there is encouraged to do so by getting tax breaks (Corp. taxes are 26% on avg.) from the government and also gets their pick of the local talent from Hangzhou University and other local schools. He mentioned there is a pool of 250,000 students and 50,000 graduates to choose from. I'm not sure how many of these are engineering students though.

One of the observations I had was that Hangzhou (and for that matter, China) is becoming extremely self-sufficient technically and they are starting to build a tremendous agdvantage over the U.S. techically because like everything else, their wages are so much lower. Couple this with several other factors: The abilty to do software development for a multi-national company remotely, hard core engineering training and strong middle-school development and China's strategy to integrate Chinese-proprietary technology into wireless and encryption gear and software and one can plainly see that China is posturing (and already actioning) itself to face off with the US as a world superpower via the economic route. This isn't a revelation I know, but we are seeing it first hand.

• Other notes: $47.8 billion total hi-tech industry in China....70% is telecom.
• Worlbank ranked HZ an A+ ratin gfor foreign investment
• Hitech workers make an average of 30% less than they would make in Shanghai.
• Typically, you get 7 days of vacation (beyond the set Chinese holidays or I beleive 2 weeks) after working for a company 4 years.
• Workers typcally get a 41% housong allowance as part of compensation

Sox are in a rain delay with the Yankees right now...I'm listening to Ted Sirandis to fill the air space...my stomach hurts....he should call it a "Listen Show" because he doesn't let anyone talk. Sorry Ted, but you are brutal.