Posted on behalf of Caleb McNary on 7/25
Today we took a high speed train to the coastal town of Tianjin. The most trouble we've had in China is coming to grips with the sheer scope of the country, and today was a perfect illustration. We start in Beijing, a city with a population of over 20 million, which is larger than the top 5 US cities combined, then we travel 100 miles to the second tier city of Tianjin, which has a population larger than New York City. And that is the way it is up and down the coast. The implications for market entry are staggering.
In the afternoon we visited a high tech development zone, and a subset within the zone dedicated to start ups. In addition to the scope of the country, we are impressed with the speed at which development happens. In one particular section of the park, they had achieved forty percent capacity within a few years of the start of the project, and anticipated being at full capacity by 2014. New business typically breaks ground within 6 months of securing the land.
