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player ready...More than a year after Mayor Richard M. Daley canceled a trade mission to China because of the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by U.S. fighter jets, the mission will finally depart–without the mayor.
About 60 people on Friday are expected to board a United Airlines flight to Tokyo, then change planes for the final leg of their journey to Shanghai, said Julie Driscoll, director of the Chicago Sister City International Program.
Unlike last year’s mission–planned to provide Chinese business representatives with a broad-brush introduction to Chicago and Midwest business contacts–this trip targets the e-commerce strategy promoted by Chicago and Shanghai, Driscoll said.
“We decided the mission needed to be more focused,” the Sister City program director said.
The trip is designed to help establish Chicago as the place for information technology business and forge Chicago-China partnerships.
The mission is sponsored by the law firm Freeborn & Partners, United Airlines, Aon Corp., Motorola Corp. and A. Finkl & Sons Co.
William Spence, a partner with Freeborn & Partners, is co-chairman of Chicago’s Sister City China Committee.
Other trip sponsors include Arthur Andersen LLP, Bechtel and the Chicago World Trade Center, Harza Engineering Co., Hewitt Associates LLC, and law firms Loeble Schlossman & Hackl and Sargent & Lundy.
The mission kicks off Monday with a conference at which Mohanbir Sawhney, a technology professor at the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, will deliver the keynote address. On Tuesday mission members will tour the Shanghai stock exchange and visit companies within the Pudong Development Zone.
On Wednesday the group will travel to Shengyang, one of Chicago’s sister cities, where the U.S. consul general will brief members before meeting with businesses in the Shengyang tech park.
The lawyers in the group will hold the first in a year-long series of seminars on judicial reform in the areas of administrative law systems, western trial procedures and strategies for enforcing foreign court awards.
Marvin Aspen, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar are among the trip’s legal experts.
The judicial reform part of the trip, which will see Chinese lawyers visiting Chicago later this year, is underwritten by a grant from the U.S. Information Agency.
Third airport fight: The Greater Rockford Airport says it should be considered the third airport for the Chicago metropolitan area. But Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport says it is Chicago’s third airport. Chicago says it is working with Gary to develop the Gary-Chicago Airport into the area’s third airport.
And Gov. George Ryan says he wants to build a third airport in south suburban Peotone, about 40 miles from Chicago’s Loop.
How many third airports can Chicago possibly need?
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