I have gone back to China and I have brought a delegation of ten companies to attend the China International Service Outsourcing Co-operation Conference in Nanjing. Outsourcing in China is smaller than India but is growing in leaps and bounds. China is looking at many aspects of outsourcing and devoting a lot of resources to developing many tech parks and innovation centres to partner with the world leaders in technology. Amazing stuff and many areas are committed to this.  They have built fabulous centres to nurture budding entrepreneurs to create "Innovated in China" as opposed to "Made in China."

The CCBC has formed an outsourcing committee that is Hong Gang, President of AMA Infotech in Toronto. Before coming to Canada , Mr Hong was very well known in China in the outsourcing field. This committee will help CCBC member companies as they enter the growing outsourcing field.

What was also very interesting was the two major software players in China who asked me to organize a few roundtables in Toronto and Waterloo in order to recruit budding talent to join their ranks in China. Waterloo, by the way, is a city that all of the Chinese tech companies know. Maybe it is too small for an NHL team but certainly it is big enough to catch their attention half way around the world.

Canada was very well represented at the outsourcing conference and had the largest delegation attending. You may be surprised to learn that Canada is the second-largest outsourcing destination in the world on a total project basis.  The total project includes management and design engineering as well as the engineers and technicians. Many companies in Canada however, outsource the engineering and tech work.

After this conference, we went to Wuxi which is another growing technology region in IT and life sciences.  Their growth is stunning and in itself this is a great story, but what makes it more remarkable is that they closed down much of the heavier industrial factories and reinvented itself.  Why you ask? Well, after Lake Tai, their main tourist spot went a lovely shade of green a few years back with a massive algae bloom, they felt a major change was needed so very quickly, they went from a manufacturing base to a technology base. We could learn from this. Their growth did not miss a beat.

Now, off to Beijing for Canada day.