Kiwi-technology gets fast track to China

Kiwi-technology gets fast track to China

New Zealand investment banking company SinoNZ ties down a deal with the prestigious Beijing Tech Centre and puts the finishing touches to a new Chinese-New Zealand healthcare fund

Kiwi technology businesses will find it significantly easier to enter China thanks to a new commercial partnership between the New Zealand-based SinoNZ International Investment Co. Ltd (SinoNZ) and the Beijing Technology Development Centre for Overseas Scholars (Beijing Tech Centre).

The Beijing Tech Center, based in Zhongguancun, Beijing – also known as China's Silicon Valley - is backed by four Chinese Government Ministries including Education and Science & Technology. It is also the Secretary-General institution for the Returned Scholars Venture Park Alliance of the China Association of Technology Entrepreneurs (CATE) and one of the foundation organizations of China International Technology Transfer Centre (CITTC). CITTC connects a country-wide network of science parks and incubators.

Beijing Tech Centre Secretary General, Mr Lang Jing, said, “Partnerships like this are vital as China globalises and further lifts its domestic innovation performance. This is our only partnership in New Zealand and we are encouraged by the quality of the opportunities presented by SinoNZ.”

SinoNZ is a boutique investment banking group focused on two-way commercialisation of technology between New Zealand and China.

Larry Podmore, a director of SinoNZ said, “The biggest challenge entering China is the cost which is often underestimated and substantial. Plus, to get any traction at all, it is essential companies build quality relationships with the right partners.”

The new Beijing Tech Center and SinoNZ agreement means New Zealand technology companies and research agencies will have unprecedented access to established and well thought of strong local networks in China providing accurate, up to the minute and in-depth information on market conditions and potential partners with the best fit. These will help them develop a strategy for entering the market, settle in the new business arrangements and monitor progress.

A range of opportunities in the environmental, agricultural and the healthcare markets are already being explored, but interest is invited from Kiwi businesses in all technology areas.

The partners are also looking to co-operate on incubation and technology transfer. The Beijing Tech Center and CITTC have a relationship with more than 125 incubators and 200 technology parks throughout China.

According to Larry Podmore, “This builds on work we’ve been doing for the past 13 years in New Zealand’s innovation space and the past eight years in building relationships with China.”

Ralph Shale of SinoNZ added, “We’d also like to acknowledge the support of Canterbury Development Corporation (CDC) – and in particular its Economic Relations Manager for Asia, Eugene Feng – in not only helping SinoNZ directly, but also for their hard work and commitment on expanding relationships for existing local businesses in China. Without this support it’s unlikely we would have been able to secure this major step forward.”             

SinoNZ is also working with a leading Chinese Venture Capital firm and healthcare technology park to establish a healthcare fund in China, which will target international technology businesses entering the Chinese market.

The healthcare sector in China has some tremendous opportunities given its size and its growth rate, said Ralph Shale. “There are reports that China will build upwards of 30,000 hospitals and clinics in the next two to three years alone. In working on establishing this fund we have already identified a number of significant opportunities for New Zealand and these are often two-way.”

SinoNZ is currently working on a partnership that will leverage the technology and intellectual property of a Chinese medical devices company with a group of leading New Zealand researchers. For the New Zealand research group, this opportunity means the commercialisation of a new diagnostic tool which was developed here but which lacked a technology platform to deploy it economically, said Shale. “It also means they will now have the funds to meet the high costs of developing a channel to market.

“The Chinese partner we’re working with already has complimentary technology in more than 1,000 hospitals in China, so this arrangement should mean our science is fast tracked into a large commercial marketplace with little of the pain you would normally associate with taking a product from a Kiwi lab to a large overseas market.”

According to Podmore, the New Zealand researchers were so impressed by the technology platform developed by SinoNZ’s Chinese partners they said that it could revolutionise children’s healthcare diagnostics. “We have had tremendous support from the medical and research sector in New Zealand, which is very encouraging.”

ENDS

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