A5

By MARY MOSZYNSKI
Canadaeast News Service

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When the Moncton Flight College began working in 2005 to sign some contracts with Chinese companies to train students in New Brunswick, the idea wasn't to avoid any brewing economic troubles in the United States.

It was simply a way to attract new customers after initial investments in Europe weren't paying off as expected.

But now, with hundreds of students and multi-million-dollar contracts, the college stands as a prime example of how a New Brunswick company can break into China's growing economy.

And, as a handful of Canadian premiers, including New Brunswick's Shawn Graham, prepare to lead a delegation of businesses to China today, they can look to the flight college to learn some valuable lessons.

"In retrospect, it was probably the best move we ever made," said college CEO and principal Mike Doiron of the business decision to focus on China.

"What we looked at was primarily the expanding markets, especially in aviation."

The idea was quite straightforward: countries with growing economies have residents who want, and can afford, to travel.

Recent statistics suggest aviation in Asia will increase by seven per cent anually over the next 20 years, compared to 3.5 per cent in Europe and 2.8 per cent in North America.

"In our case, we sort of looked at it and said, 'Here's a given market over here that is very complex and if we're going to go over there we really need to do our homework,'" Doiron said.

"And that's what we did."

The college partnered with CanLink Global in Saint John, a business with experience in helping companies break into the Chinese marketplace that has since partnered with the college on its Fredericton campus.

The advice they received was invaluable, said Dorion.

The school has a $60-million contract to train pilots for Chinese airlines and Doiron said he's optimistic additional deals could be reached during the upcoming trip to China.

Graham, as well as 11 New Brunswick companies, including the college, will be in China from Nov. 2 to Nov. 7 for a business mission that will include three cities.

It's estimated that China requires roughly 1,200 new pilots each year. The first contract between the college and China was signed with the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2006.

Since then, the college has trained about 300 students from the university and expects to train another 300. As a result, the college has increased its business.

The college recently expanded its operations and opened a Fredericton campus to train the dozens of Chinese students coming to New Brunswick to earn their wings.

"The Moncton Flight College has had such a tremendous track record of doing business in China," said Graham.

Teaming with the Saint John business gave the college valuable insight to the different ways China conducts negotiations.

"What we found from our experience is quite a big of negotiation up front to clearly understand what the deliverables are. Once you've got the contract, we found them incredibly wonderful to work with," said Doiron.

Although it's difficult to determine the benefits of government trade missions to various countries and provinces, having government representatives backing local businesses is crucial in China, he said.

"If there's one thing that to me is very, very critical to the success of businesses in Canada, especially if you're doing business in China, you really need the support of the political system, if you will," said Doiron.

"This is probably the best investment that New Brunswick can make. You need to go over there and shake hands. The people that need to do it from a provincial point of view has to be the premier."