Southwest Florida leaders sign pact with Chinese city

The best business tool? Befriend the competition.

Political and business leaders from Southwest Florida and Yantai, a coastal city in China, signed an alliance at Florida Gulf Coast University on Wednesday, an agreement that offers Chinese and American students and business leaders a chance to closely study each other’s powerhouse economies, signatories said.

The Sister Cities alliance, the university’s second international alliance with China, will give FGCU students and faculty, as well as local businesses, exchange opportunities that will bring the Chinese perspective into the classroom and the business market. Though some 8,000 miles away, Yantai’s tourism and agricultural-driven economy has many similarities to Southwest Florida, giving local businesses insight into how a powerful Communist country handles its business, said Richard Pegnetter, dean of FGCU’s Lutgert College of Business.

“China is now one of the world’s economic powers,” Pegnetter said. “The Chinese economy and the Chinese thinking is very competitive ... we’ve got to keep ourselves growing and improving to keep ourselves competitive.”

The alliance between FGCU and Yantai University will increase diversity and promote new business techniques, he said. Exchanges likely won’t occur until 2007 or 2008, said Bonnie Yegidis, FGCU provost.

American business perspectives can’t come fast enough, according to Chinese delegates who wined and dined with top university officials and county commissioners from Lee, Collier, Hendry, and Charlotte counties on Wednesday. As the Americans want to dissect how the Chinese conduct business, the Chinese are eager to see how America has built its powerful economy, said Jian Feng Liu, deputy director of the Yantai Foreign Affairs Office.

Photo by MICHEL FORTIER, Daily News

Florida Gulf Coast University President William Merwin unravels a print painted by Yantai University Vice President Yu Wen Shu, center, during a “sister city” ceremony between Southwest Florida and Yantai, China at FGCU on Wednesday.

“America is a giant,” Liu said. “From my perspective, the global economy has become interdependent. The whole world is becoming one market. We need cooperation to develop ideas ... to nurture future cooperation and friendship.”

Cultural experience produces well-rounded business people who understand how the global market trickles down to the local level, said Yu Wenshu, vice president of Yantai University.

“Because of the cultural differences, this kind of cooperation will provide the opportunity to learn from each other,” Wenshu said through an interpreter. “It is a way to increase the quality of the students. It is also a way for Americans to learn more about China.”

Though many business students aren’t interested in the global market, almost anyone who wants to be successful in business needs to be, Pegnetter said. He noted that China’s demand for building supplies has increased construction costs in Southwest Florida as well as in Yantai.