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Sep 06 2019

WSCRC Co-hosts Dialogue on US-China Trade Policy

WSCRC along with Davis Wright Tremaine and the UW School of Law Global Business Law Institute hosted a dialogue about US China trade on September 6^th, 2019.

Representative Rick Larsen (Dem. 2nd District) and Dr. Lisa Brown, Director of Commerce for Washington State, provided comments and then engaged in a discussion moderated by former Ambassador to China Gary Locke. Director Brown outlined the importance of trade with China to Washington’s economy and noted that the State will soon send a trade delegation to China. Representative Larsen commented that there is a consensus in the Congress about what’s wrong with the US-China trade relationship but there is currently no coherent strategy to address the problems.

After a series of probing questions posed by Ambassador Locke, a lively Q and A concluded the session.

Aug 30 2019

Tariffs, Tensions and Trade between U.S. and China

WSCRC’s Executive Director Nor Coquillard spoke at an event in Everett recently titled “Tariffs, Tension and Trade”. The event, co-sponsored by the Economic Alliance of Snohomish County, Snohomish County, and WSCRC, brought together business and civic leaders from the region. In addition to Nor, former Governor Gary Locke and well-known lawyer Nelson Dong of Dorsey and Whitney made presentations about the impacts of the continued trade war with China. Then they all participated in a panel discussion moderated by Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. The audience was particularly interested in the repercussions of an extended trade war on the economy of Washington state.

Aug 27 2019

Member Spotlight – iSoftStone North America

iSoftStone is a leading global information technology services and solutions provider. They partner with clients to create innovative software solutions and provide best-in-class consulting services. Backed by proven processes, innovation, and a strong engagement track record, iSoftStone navigates clients through today’s challenges while helping them prepare for demands of the future.

iSoftStone North America employees work across offices in Seattle, New York, Virginia, and Toronto. Headquartered in Beijing with over 56 offices and 40,000+ employees around the world, iSoftStone understands what it takes to deliver success on a global scale.

iSoftStone North America and the WSCRC

iSoftStone North America has been a long-time partner of the WSCRC and proudly hosted WSCRC events at our headquarters. iSoftStone works closely with the WSCRC to promote stronger relationships with China throughout North America.

How iSoftStone helps clients reach their business objectives

iSoftStone’s singular approach, working across multiple disciplines to optimize knowledge transfer and execution, sets them apart from the competition. Beginning with research, strategy, and analysis, their solutions are based, first and foremost, on understanding client business objectives and developing targeted solutions to help successfully realize those objectives.

Industry leaders such as Microsoft, University of Washington, LivePerson, Facebook, Tapestry, Revlon, and Boeing are just some of the local partners iSoftStone engages with on a variety of technology and marketing projects.

Their areas of focused engagement include:

Azure

Azure is an exciting, and demanding, space for their clients. iSoftStone has developed Azure applications and cloud services that have spurred rapid digital transformation for their clients. They lead complex cloud migrations, build infrastructure and cloud apps, and manage complete projects from start to finish.

Adobe

iSoftStone has helped clients unleash the full power of Adobe Experience Manager, a content management system with deep integrations into many platforms. They have designed, built, and launched new customer experiences for global brands such as Microsoft. Their work results in reactive customer experiences that are popular with end users, and provide our clients with invaluable data for their business.

Artificial Intelligence

Having built sophisticated chatbots for clients, iSoftStone is adept at harnessing A.I. to function in a variety of platforms, from Facebook to Microsoft 365 applications. These chatbots serve as a first line of help for end users, while also helping businesses understand and act on customer demand.

Data Maturity

iSoftStone leads clients through a variety of challenging data transformations. Global brands turn to iSoftStone North America when they need help turning isolated data into a truly effective data warehouse or data lake. iSoftStone understands the deep impact that data maturity has on businesses of any size. Clients love the holistic approach to data and rely on them to lead sweeping data transformations.

BPA

Business Process Automation: We design and implement software automation solutions that enable our clients to scale, reduce cost and improve quality across their end-to-end business processes. We design, implement and support the leading UiPath RPA (robotic process automation) solution for our Fortune 1000 clients. RPA is on the journey to Intelligent Automation, and leverages powerful cognitive (AI) capabilities.

Accessibility

Microsoft’s Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs division (CELA) relies on iSoftStone to bring deeper levels of inclusivity to their corporate portals. Microsoft is also using iSoftStone North America to bring ground-breaking American Sign Language translation services to life. Sharing their passions is part of the iSoftStone culture, and they host a bi-monthly Accessibility Meetup at their headquarters in Kirkland.

What sets iSoftStone apart

The world-class iSoftStone team treat their clients as partners, value face-to-face consulting, and leverage their broad global reach. The backgrounds of 300+ North America, full-time consulting professionals bring a vast array of experiences to each engagement in the areas of research, project management, user experience design, marketing strategy, and engineering/IT services. The combination of their North American consulting teams with their offshore technology centers of excellence provide scale and value, while maintaining best-in-class quality. As Microsoft and Adobe partners, they are also able to attract and retain the best talent with their training and retention policies.

Want to know more about iSoftStone North America? Contact them via email or their Web site.

Aug 27 2019

WSCRC Mourns the Passing of “the Revolutionary“ Sidney Rittenberg 李敦白

WSCRC mourns the passing of Sidney Rittenberg, an American whose deep ties with modern China were unparalleled. Sidney was directly involved in many of the key moments of modern Chinese history. On his return from China Sidney settled in the Pacific Northwest Region and lent his expertise to the Washington State China Relations Council. We are grateful for the insights and observations that he shared with the Council which helped to guide the Council to fulfill its mission.

Aug 16 2019

The Tariff Battle With China Threatens Washington’s Well-Being

By: Spencer Cohen

Published online on Seattle Business Mag, August 2019

A prolonged trade war would devastate Washington’s economy

If left unchecked, the trade war between the U.S. and China has the potential for long-lasting damage to the Washington state economy. U.S. businesses have many legitimate grievances toward China, including intellectual property theft and industrial policies that seemingly disadvantage them in China. But the longer the dispute remains unresolved, the greater the risk to Washington’s historically prosperous trade relationship with China. Trade wars, as a general rule, yield no true winners. The collateral damage — in terms of lost overseas market share, aggravated supply chains, a reduction of cargo handled at our ports, reduced investment, and impacts to households in the form of higher costs — can be pernicious.

China is Washington’s most important export market. In 2018, after removing some pass-throughs such as soybeans, Washington state exported $14.3 billion in goods to China, of which $11.4 billion were aerospace products, defined largely by Boeing aircraft. Between 2011 and 2018, Washington cumulatively exported, in 2018 dollars, more than $106 billion in goods to China. The sales help drive economic growth across the state, bringing in new capital that is further spent throughout the economy.

Exports also aren’t just about aerospace. In 2018, Washington exported to China $364 million in ultrasound equipment, $70 million in wheat, and $68 million in cherries, as well as various other food, materials and machinery. Add to all of this the many billions of dollars in services exports, including software royalties, foreign student tuition and related expenses, tourism spending, and various professional services such as architecture design and engineering projects.

Many of the new tariffs have yet to fully materialize, according to the latest U.S. Customs data. Overall exports to China, adjusted for inflation, fell by just 1%. However, products subject to China’s list of 6,000 retaliatory tariffs experienced an inflation-adjusted 7% decrease year over year in 2018. Some of the biggest declines were in frozen potato products (23%), rough wood products (50%) and cherries (30%). There are many factors shaping export flows, but tariffs no doubt have a negative impact. Products included on China’s full retaliatory list support 29,000 jobs statewide, including direct employment and through multiplier effects.

Until recently, China has also been an important source of inbound investment, including foreign direct investment and household spending on real estate. Recent Chinese capital controls and tighter federal regulations on inbound investments have stymied the flow of this capital, and the impact has been profound and large.

Beyond exports originating from Washington, our state is a major Pacific gateway for the movement of millions of containers (measured in 20-foot equivalent units), plus bulk and break-bulk cargo between China and locations in the U.S. More than a third of all containerized cargo by weight handled in Washington state is from trade with China.

Handling these shipments supports an extensive logistics system in our state that includes thousands of jobs in stevedoring, trucking, warehousing, transloading, rail services and freight forwarding. At The Northwest Seaport Alliance, a partnership between the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, 60% of all inbound containers come from China, while 32% of outbound containers are headed there. Containerized cargo, primarily linked to China, in 2018 directly supported nearly 15,000 jobs in the greater Seattle area. There also are shipments to China of soybeans, grain, and other bulk commodities and breakbulk, the handling of which supports economic activity in our state. A prolonged trade war with China could mean fewer products shipped through our state, hurting this important source of job creation.

In 2018, Washington’s ports handled 15.5 million metric tons of cargo to or from China, down from 25 million just a year earlier. By value, imports and exports subject to U.S. and China tariff lists fell from $27.2 billion to $24.1 billion in 2018, though imports actually increased. Agriculture exports handled at Washington ports experienced the most acute pain from the trade war, such as soybeans from the Midwest shipped through Washington ports.

Washington’s close linkages with China make this region all the more vulnerable to an extended contraction of trade, impacting local businesses and communities across the state. For years, U.S.-China economic ties have helped mollify impulses for more aggressive agitation and flare-ups. A reduction in economic interdependence means less economic benefits are immediately at stake from a more strained relationship or even confrontation, a dangerous scenario for the world and Washington state’s economic well-being.

Spencer Cohen is a senior economist at Seattle-based research firm Community Attributes Inc. He can be reached at spencer@communityattributes.com.

Original link: http://seattlebusinessmag.com/economy-policy-regulations-ceo-advisor/tariff-battle-china-threatens-washingtons-well-being