China Connection Part 2; The Handshake

In early 1980's China was poised for a strong future growth and the Chinese government encouraged growth by designating important technologies and products in their 5 year plan.        We learned that the     printing and printing plate were in this 5 year plan and thus the interest by the China National Chemical Construction Company.         It is clear that they have contacted and reviewed the opportunity with our competitors but in the end decided to work with us.     Thus after the initial discussion in 1984,  they have sent numbers of delegations to study our plants in US, Germany and UK as well as equipment suppliers and customer.         Simon Chu, Bill Salzman and Jenchi Huang made follow up visits  leading to the 1986 signing of licensing agreement.         Although Polychrome trailed competitors in production and sales in volume, we became #1 in regional presence and breadth of technology.      Polychrome was the only one company in the world to have presence in US, Europe, Japan and now China.      We helped our licensees in Japan and China in technology and they served as our eyes to the new business frontier.        The signing of agreement was the beginning of the long friendship to come between the Second Film Factory (2FF) and Polychrome.