INDIANAPOLIS | Gov. Mitch Daniels reaffirmed Indiana's economic interest in China on Monday, inking a business cooperation agreement with the leader of a Chinese province of 54 million people.
The Republican governor and Zhejiang Party Secretary Zhao Hongzhu signed a memorandum of understanding promising to develop additional business links between Indiana and Zhejiang Province, located on the east cost of China south of Shanghai.
"There is nowhere with whom we are more intent on building greater ties than with the great nation of China," Daniels said. "In today's economy, a good test of a great state is whether it can participate in trade and in the two-way exchange with China."
A dozen Indiana companies also signed business cooperation agreements with Chinese counterparts during the Indiana-Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium at the Indianapolis J.W. Marriott Hotel, owned and operated by White Lodging of Merrillville.
None of the business-to-business agreements involved Northwest Indiana companies, something Daniels hopes can be rectified.
"I don't think it's limited to their outlook on China or international trade, they're just a little less enterprising about business in general," Daniels said of region companies. "It doesn't fall in your lap -- you've got to earn it, you've got to build an environment that invites it and looks more attractive than all the other environments that somebody can go to."
Indiana and Zhejiang have been sister states since 1987.
By focusing the state's business interests in a single Chinese province, Daniels said Indiana is more likely to develop the kinds of long-lasting connections that lead to better business opportunities.