A Chinese company, Ningbo Self Electronics Corporation USA, is opening a sales office in Gwinnett County, the second announcement in less than a week of new Chinese investment in the suburban Atlanta county.

Electronics manufacturer Hisense USA Corp. announced June 25 that it would open a research and development center in Gwinnett, investing $800,000 and creating 35-40 jobs over the next three to five years.

Ningbo Self, which makes lighting equipment, will invest $200,000 in a Gwinnett sales office, the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce announced. Gwinnett chamber members and elected officials are currently on a trade mission to China and South Korea, working to attract additional investments.

“Once again, Gwinnett’s efforts to build international ties with Asian business have proven beneficial for our community,” Gwinnett Commission Chairman Charles Bannister said in a prepared statement from South Korea.

David Lee, president of Ningbo Self USA, said Gwinnett was chosen for the sales office because of its proximity to U.S. clients such as Home Depot Inc.

“The Gwinnett and metro Atlanta region enable us to provide better customer services to existing clients while offering convenient access to over 80 percent of the U.S. market in just two days via road transport,” Mr. Lee said in a prepared statement. “And with the world’s busiest airport, it also serves as our international gateway to the North American and South American markets.”

Ningbo Self is headquartered in Ningbo, China, a city of about six million people that is connected to Shanghai by the 22-mile-long Hangzhous Bay Bridge.

In an interview with GlobalAtlanta, Jane Li, a metro Atlanta consultant who represents the Ningbo Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, predicted many other companies from Ningbo will open Georgia facilities. "The future opportunities are infinite," said Ms. Li, who travels to China three to four times annually. She has led delegations from the Metro Atlanta Chamber and Atlanta City Council on trips to Ningbo, where they visited the offices of Ningbo Self.

Ningbo is a contender to be Atlanta’s Chinese sister city. The Atlanta Sister Cities Commission recommended Ningbo, but the Atlanta City Council and Mayor  Shirley Franklin have not issued final approval.

Ms. Franklin said in January that pending agreements with Ningbo and Ahmedabad, India, should be confirmed only after Atlanta is able to fully administer the 18 sister city relationships it already has in place.

“So I made a very unpopular decision, which is that if we cannot service the 18 cities that we have, we should not expand to Nos. 19 and 20,” Ms. Franklin said.

In addition to Gwinnett’s recent Chinese investments, the county in June also landed the corporate headquarters for NCR Corp. a Fortune 500 company which has factories in Hungary, India and China.  NCR is relocating its headquarters from Dayton, Ohio, to Duluth, bringing 1,250 new jobs in addition to the 300 the technology company relocated here last year.

NCR is also building an ATM factory in Columbus that will create 870 jobs, and it's expanding a customer service center in Peachtree City, creating 916 jobs over 26 months.

For more information on Ningbo Self, click here . For more information on the Gwinnett Chamber, click here .

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