Mr. Kasraie

Investing in less well-known Chinese cities using local legal counsel is a good business move for Georgia companies looking to export products to China, according to Bijan Kasraie, partner in Atlanta law firm Marchman & Kasraie LLC.

Mr. Kasraie, who has several joint venture companies in various locations in China and serves as a city government financial and economic adviser to several medium-sized Chinese cities, is currently working on a case to find a way to sell Georgia cotton directly to Chinese buyers. His firm specializes in international business transactions in a variety of industries in Asia.

“Most Americans concentrate on a handful of cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. But there are great opportunities in virgin areas instead of going with the whole gang to Shanghai,” Mr. Kasraie told GlobalAtlanta in a recent interview.

Chinese cities such as Linjiang and Changchun offer opportunities for Georgia companies if they have the proper relationships in place to be able to work there, he said.

Having a partnership with a Chinese firm allows Marchman & Kasraie to advise clients on investing and forming joint ventures in Chinese cities other than the largest metropolitan areas where other American firms have offices, he added.

Marchman & Kasraie has been working with Chinese clients for more than six years and has a joint venture with Dong Nan Law Firm in Nanjing, China. The firm can advise Georgia companies on the legal, financial political and cultural environment for investing in China, Mr. Kasraie said.

“A lot of American firms have offices in China and Chinese lawyers, but they don’t have a Chinese law firm, so their Chinese clients do not trust them,” he said. In smaller cities, Chinese want to do business with U.S. partners, but they have reservations, he said. 

“Our relationship [with the Dong Nan firm] is unusual but it works,” he added.

Mr. Kasraie was approached in 1997 by Chinese municipal officials who sought him out for his reputation for doing international financial transactions for more than 30 years. He was asked to become the city government financial and economic adviser to Linjiang City in the Jilin Province and accepted on Sept. 10, 1998.

Mr. Kasraie is now serving as adviser to two cities in China, Linjiang and Baishan City. The city of Changchun in the Jilin Province has recently asked him to become its city adviser, he said.

Since 1998, Mr. Kasraie has worked as an attorney and as a businessman in China, forming two business joint ventures there. One is with Hoyo Municipal Utility Administration and Investment Group that manufactures and installs water and sewage piping systems in cities throughout China. The other is a pharmaceutical joint venture in Hangzhou. He is working on forming other joint ventures in Beijing and Shanghai.

Chinese investors from these cities are also interested in coming to Georgia, Mr. Kasraie said. He is bringing a group of potential investors to Atlanta in March, though declined to divulge any further information about the group.

Chinese companies are being encouraged by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to invest in heavy industry and technology, so these types of companies are growing in China, he said. 

Chinese companies are also interested in buying Georgia products, he added.

Mr. Kasraie, who was in China in December and January, has developed a relationship with a client there who is interested in purchasing the equivalent of Georgia’s entire one-year cotton crop. Once he obtains a quota from the Chinese government to import the cotton, Mr. Kasraie is hoping to work with the U.S. government to find a way to buy cotton from the government loan program that farmers sell their cotton to and then distribute his proceeds from the China sale back to Georgia farmers.

Mr. Kasraie’s current and potential business with China is ongoing even as the United States has filed a World Trade Organization action against China over alleged illegal industrial subsidies. The suit claims that Chinese government subsidies for steel, paper, information technology and other industries allow China to export goods more cheaply, preventing U.S. companies from competing fairly in the U.S. and in third markets.

The U.S. Trade Representative office is seeking formal dispute settlement from the WTO to remedy tax and other tools allegedly used by China to encourage exports and discriminate against various U.S. manufactured imports.