In U.S. international trade, 95 percent of the volume travels by ship, but the other 5 percent represents two-thirds of the revenue, said Chris Foster, deputy business development secretary for Maryland.
That typically comes in the transfer of knowledge and expertise by companies like Baltimore-based RTKL, an international architectural firm that is “literally transforming the face of China,” said Foster?s supervisor, Aris Melissaratos.
The firm that most recently designed the Reginald Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History in Baltimore and the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in D.C. also designed Shanghai?s Museum of Science and Technology, site of the Asian Pacific summit in 2001, and the newer Chinese Museum of Film in Beijing.
Also in the works are a cultural center and a music center in Shanghai; a science museum in Guangzhou; and the Capital Museum and Civil Aviation Museum in Beijing. RTKL also did the master plan for the 2008 Olympic Village in China?s capital.
“What we are selling from America is specialized knowledge,” said Doug McCoach, an RTKL vice president who has worked on projects in China, including s sophisticated data center in Shenzhen for Huawei, the Cisco systems of China. Many U.S. architectural firms, including some in Baltimore, outsource their detailed drafting of building specifications to lower paid Chinese workers, but the major conceptual design is done in United States.
“The Chinese middle class is exploding,” McCoach said. “All of a sudden they have a consumer culture. The middle class has disposable income and free time.” Chinese officials and consumers are looking for “architecture that is non-traditional but uniquely expresses their Chineseness. They are very keen to understand who they are as a culture in a time of rapid change,” he said.
McCoach couldn?t put a dollar figure on RTKL?s Chinese projects. The firm has 27 employees in Shanghai, mostly involved in master planning, commercial and retail projects. “We have a significant Chinese employee base throughout the U.S.,” he said.
DBED?s Foster said RTKL?s Shanghai office “looks like a Chinese operation. You have to create jobs in China” if you?re going to do business there, he said. “We just want to get a piece of the pie.”
» Tomorrow: Maryland?s chicken feet in China.
