More News

Last year, John P. Hollerbach was among the business executives who participated in a Montgomery County economic development trade mission to India.

While Montgomery has wooed Indian technology companies to the county as a result of the trip, Hollerbach, CEO of HarVest Bank of Maryland, said his bank has also seen more business from the Indian community.

"They have been impressed that I made an effort to go there and gain a deeper understanding of their culture and country," Hollerbach said. "There are not many bankers reaching into these visible, important communities."

Hollerbach and other executives recently returned from another county-led trade mission, this time to Korea and China. They expect similar results as from the India mission.

Executives signed memorandum of understanding agreements to expand trade and information opportunities, including with officials in the Pudong New Area in China and with the president of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute. Woo-Taik Chung, governor of Chungbuk, Korea, committed to invest $2 million in the eastern Montgomery County incubator planned in White Oak along Route 29.

Executives with RNL Biostar, already an incubator tenant in Rockville, expressed interest in building a manufacturing facility in Montgomery. The delegation toured Korean parent RNL Bio's lab in Seoul.

Getting in the game

With Montgomery competing with Boston, Atlanta and other jurisdictions to attract foreign companies, such trade missions help officials get their feet in the door, said County Executive Isiah Leggett (D).

"If you don't get in the game and participate, you'll lose out," Leggett said. "Though we have a lot of biotech industry here, you can't rest on your laurels. You can't think people are automatically going to come here."

Another purpose of the trade missions is to enable companies that are here to compete better in global markets, Leggett said. For instance, participant Lisa Chan, executive vice president for business development with ZaraCom Technologies, a Rockville telecommunications company, talked to executives with Chinese telecom giant China Mobile about a deal, he said.

"She has products, and they have tried her products out in one market there and are going to try in another market," Leggett said. "If she gets that, you're talking a major, major procurement."

Montgomery County has some important overseas business links, Chan said in a statement. "This trip allowed us to take greater advantage of these links, promoting our local business and the county," Chan said. "We truly hope to see more foreign missions like this in the future."

For Germantown biotech Amarex Clinical Research, the mission gave the company "instant credibility that we would not have otherwise," said president and CEO Kazem Kazempour.

"Participating on this mission helped us establish beneficial contacts with key Korean agencies that will benefit Amarex in obtaining new business from Korean biopharmaceutical companies," Kazempour said. "We were also able to arrange meetings with several Korean companies that have resulted in near-term business opportunities."

Leggett said he plans to build relationships with umbrella organizations and companies to try to get businesses in China and Korea to expand and locate in Montgomery.

"That's why we are talking to these ministries and these big pharma companies there, and signing those agreements, rather than dealing with companies individually," he said. "We're trying to have them be the agent for us, to get these companies to locate a presence here."

With the growth potential in Asia, it's important for Montgomery business executives and economic development officials to tap into such a high-growth area, Leggett said.

Hollerbach said that as one of the senior business people on the mission, he was called on to be part of the ceremonies.

"I was honored to play that role," he said. "I also wanted to bring back a … deeper understanding of the culture and business community to be more effective in dealing with those communities here."

Besides county and business executives, the Korea and China trip included representatives from Johns Hopkins University's Montgomery County campus, the National Institutes of Health and the state economic development department. Some representatives went for the entire trip, while others visited only one country.

In 2002, the county's Department of Economic Development led its first business development mission to Korea. One result of that trip was to attract Bioneer Life Science Corp. to Rockville, officials said. The relationships have resulted in about $10 million in direct investment of Korean capital in Montgomery County businesses during the past several years, they said.

First trip to China

"We were able to reaffirm and expand our partnership with Chungbuk Province during this most recent visit," Leggett said. "Our two jurisdictions share many strategic economic and business development philosophies, and Chungbuk is poised to be a very valuable partner with us in terms of significant investment to help further expand the county's life sciences industry."

The mission was county officials' first to China and included stops in Shanghai, Suzhou and Beijing.

They met with representatives of Chinese biopharmaceutical companies seeking a presence in the U.S. and visited Chinese operations of Marriott International and other Montgomery County businesses. They also met with executives from Joinn Laboratories in Beijing, which established a subsidiary in the county's new Germantown Innovation Center incubator.

The trip's cost for Leggett and his aides was about $38,000, said Patrick Lacefield, a spokesman for Leggett. Some of that should be reimbursed by the state, he said.

Staff Writer Steve Monroe contributed to this report.