Shawn Halladay in China
Greetings from Beijing! Just so you don't view this post as just a travelogue, you should know that I have been busy doing things other than climbing the Great Wall and visiting the Forbidden City. One of these is teaching a leasing class on Selling Leasing to the CFO. There were 25 lease sales professionals in the class from Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei. It was a great experience, especially given the burgeoning growth of leasing in China. During the last year alone, for instance, there have been 10-15 new foreign leasing companies established in China, including Societe Generale, Deutsche Leasing, Xerox, Caterpillar, GE, and Siemens. Leasing is becoming a truly global industry, which brings me to the other purpose of my visit to China. In addition to teaching the seminar, I also am attending our Alta Group meetings while I am here. This spring our US, European, Latin American, and Asian partners decided to gather in Beijing due to the rapidly expanding equipment leasing opportunities that are being created in China. As you know, China's growing market presents tremendous opportunities for exporters of goods and services throughout the world. US exports to China alone totaled $35 billion in 2004 and a tremendous amount of goods are flowing the other way. It only makes sense that leasing will follow this growth. Like any growing leasing industry, there are still unanswered questions as to how to conduct leasing business in China. The National Peoples' Congress, for instance, currently is working on a new leasing law to provide better structure to the industry. We met with members of the committee working on this law to provide them with comments, additional insights, and perspective gleaned from many years of experience throughout the world. Alta also has had meetings with the financial press, several Chinese lessors, leasing association officers, and key government figures, including those from the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Taxation, and the National Development and Reform Commission. Well, I have to get back to work. There are copious amounts of Peking duck to be consumed at our dinner with the Ministry of Finance officials tonight and I need to be ready for the challenge. If you are interested in China and want to get a good overview of how leasing works there, you can read the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation report that I and several other Alta principals authored. that I and several other Alta principals authored: http://leasingnews.org/PDF/China_Report_FINAL.pdf Subscribe to Leasing Notes: www.leasingnotes.com
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