Joining hands across the water

Trading partners

"For Tacoma, a leading US seaport for international trade, China is a very important trading partner and has been our No 1 trading partner by volume and value for many years," said Tong Zhu, chief commercial and strategy officer for the Port of Tacoma and Northwest Seaport Alliance.

Zhu had worked with Gary Locke, a former governor of Washington state, and US ambassador to China from 2011 to 2014, to develop trade with China. Locke himself embodies the close relationship between the state and China, having ancestral roots in Guangdong province, neighboring Fujian, and whose grandfather was among the early Chinese migrants to Washington in the late 1800s.

Trade ties between the two cities became stronger in 2008 with the establishment of a trade project aimed at helping Tacoma businesses attract Chinese investment and aiding Chinese companies in expanding to the US.

"Working in partnership with the city of Fuzhou and the city of Tacoma, we developed a program based on the sister-city relationship that ultimately led to an exchange of personnel to promote and drive tangible international trade transactions," Zhu said. "Activities later expanded into attracting inbound foreign direct investment from Fuzhou and China at large to the Tacoma area."

The Tacoma-Fuzhou Trade Office Exchange Program set up in 2008 lasted for 18 months, during which Fuzhou sent three representatives to Tacoma, each serving a six-month term. The project resulted in direct bilateral trade worth $450,000 and facilitated trade agreements totaling $1.57 million, Fuzhou Evening News reported.

Commercial deals signed as a result of the program included exports of wine to Fuzhou and of industrial bags to Tacoma, Zhu said.

During the pandemic, based on an earlier agreement between the two cities, the World Trade Center Tacoma and the Administrative Committee of Fuzhou Area of China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone held joint virtual trade conferences to match small and medium-sized companies together.

This year, the Asia Pacific Cultural Center in Tacoma signed an agreement with a tea company in Fuzhou to promote jasmine tea in the US, the type of collaboration that "offers an economic development opportunity for us", Tacoma Mayor Woodards said.

"From an economic development standpoint, we are really focused on technological innovation and collaboration among cities to support more green jobs and low-carbon sustainable development in our communities."

In this respect, she said, "I think we have a lot to learn from Fuzhou and from China."