After Asia, O'Malley planning more foreign travel
Fresh from a 10-day trade mission to Asia, Gov. Martin O’Malley said Tuesday he hopes to make more foreign trips during his second term.
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have requested a detailed accounting of public money spent on the expedition.
O’Malley said the trip to China, South Korea and Vietnam was good for $85 million in deals between Asian and Maryland businesses, and spoke of future travel to India, Africa and Latin America.
“You can't really be effective as a governor in a global economy … unless you are engaged abroad and doing things that only the governor's office can do,” the Democratic governor told reporters in Annapolis.
The Asia was O’Malley’s first to the world’s fastest-growing region. Other governors, including Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., his Republican predecessor, made similar expeditions.
What distinguished O’Malley’s trip was the size. Nearly 70 officials, educators and business leaders, who paid their own way, accompanied O’Malley for at least part of the mission.
While O’Malley was overseas, the Maryland House Republican leadership wrote to the state Department of Business and Economic Development asking for a breakdown of state expenses.
“Could the same thing have been accomplished without such a large delegation traveling on the taxpayer’s dime?” House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell asked.
A spokeswoman for DBED, which organized the trip, said tax dollars were used to fund travel for six officials. That does not include O’Malley’s security detail or University System of Maryland staff.
A more complete accounting is expected later this week.
O’Malley, who had never traveled in Asia, said he was struck by the “enormity” of the sprawling Asian cities and the “the pace of the industrial progress.” He noted that Shanghai, one of the five cities he visited, has a population 35 times that of Baltimore.
The pace of development was also stunning, he said. On a high-speed train ride from Shanghai to nearby Nanjing he said he “saw nothing but cranes on the horizon.”
He spoke also of a downside to the rapid development and industrialization. In five days in China, he said, “we never saw the sun. We never saw the sky. So thick was the smog.”
Lin Hwang, vice president of J&R Seafood Inc. in Cambridge, said the trip was “better than expected.”
Hwang’s company exports blue crabs to South Korea. He met with five potential buyers in China, where he said drought has made crabs scarce; he said one wanted an exclusive deal “for everything we could produce.”
Terry Lin, the chief executive officer of Planned Systems International in Columbia, said the trip accelerated the pace of a $45 million deal the information technology consulting firm had been negotiating with a Chinese company. The contract was one of the first O’Malley announced during his trip.
The governor hinted that more deals from the trip are in the works.
The governor displayed a slideshow of pictures from the trip, including images from the Great Wall of China and The Forbidden City in Beijing. His 13-year-old son William joined him during those portions of the trip, at O’Malley’s expense.
O'Malley was also photographed visiting the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. The image shows him standing inside a building on the border as two North Korean soldiers outside glare through a window over his shoulder.
Comments
Maryland businesses seeking markets overseas don't need a governor to pave the way. I'm very curious about the purported $85M in business said to be generated by the trip. As for further trips, forget India; their businesses have no cash, and are only interested in capital infusions and outsourcing jobs from the U.S.
Undoubtedly, the photo op' at the DMZ will be used as demonstration of MO'M's "statesmanship" in his planned march to national office.
Posted by: bilrux | June 14, 2011 3:34 PM
must be nice to travel like bo on our
dollar
Posted by: sillyman michaels | June 14, 2011 3:39 PM
On a train ride from Shanghai to a province he "saw nothing BUT cranes on the horizon."
"In five days we never saw the sun. We never saw the sky. So THICK was the smog,"
Go MD/DBED!
Posted by: Phil Mok | June 14, 2011 9:12 PM
What gov't freeloader wouldn't want to travel abroad more at the taxpayer's expense? Typical.....
Posted by: Tom | June 14, 2011 9:34 PM
I suppose Salisbury, Arundel Mills and Largo aren't as glittering and satisfying once you've see the streets of Shanghai?
Posted by: didactic1 | June 15, 2011 4:56 AM
Normally, I would not complain about a few government officials going abroad to tout the state as a place to set up shop. However, I am taken a bit by the product sold. We are selling OUR blue crabs to overseas. Crabs dredged from public waters, supported with taxpayer dollars for management and protection. Not biotech, not green technology our natural resources, which in turn drive up our costs. And the kicker is, they are buyingthem with our money from the bonds we are floating to pay our national debt. In the meantime, most of Phillip's crabs come from indonesia. Isn't that a kick in the groin? The IT deal is a good thing. But that was one deal that made up over half the haul. Seems like alot of people for just a couple deals.
One the other hand, the more the governor is out of the state, the less he can screw it up here.
Posted by: R Scott Grimes | June 15, 2011 7:16 AM
Did anyone happen to notice that while O'Malley was gone, none of our taxes or fess went up?
Coincidence?......I don't think so!
Posted by: Mike | June 15, 2011 9:13 AM
In other words, just like his hero/failure Obama, O'Malley plans to be out of the state from here on in for an average of every other day.
Posted by: Cliff Williams | June 15, 2011 9:21 AM
Hizonnor is just revving up for his expected coronation by Babs to take over her Senate seat . . . the taxpayer? Who cares about the taxpayer, he/she has to start saving up to pay the higher tolls.
Posted by: Jimmy A. | June 15, 2011 9:59 AM
He's quiet on KORUS FTA yet he'll travel to South Korea to get Maryland favorable trade deals? What an a-- backwards approach. Grow some, Martin.
Posted by: Blah Blah | June 15, 2011 11:43 AM
MOM is a shameless suck up, positioning himself for his next job and fattening up his resume at Marylanders expense.
Posted by: john | June 15, 2011 1:08 PM