The long-awaited arrival of a Chinese medical technology company in London is being heralded as a potential beachhead for a flood of Asian investment in the city.

City officials announced Thursday the Jinshan Science and Technology Group will set up an office downtown this fall.

The office, which will likely open in mid-October, initially will co-ordinate research trials for the company’s capsule endoscopy system — a tiny capsule camera swallowed by patients that allows doctors to view internal organs remotely.

The device is used in more than 3,000 hospitals in 62 countries and the company is donating one of the systems for clinical trials in London.

Jinshan’s research office is a modest start but city officials hope it will sprout into a North American distribution office and even a manufacturing centre for Jinshan’s technology.

The company was founded by Chinese business mogul Jinshan Wang. Wang also controls an investment bank and plans to open a branch in London, subject to regulatory approval.

“London has great potential and is very attractive for investments. London has all the attributes of health, affordability, quality of life and has an exciting future,” Wang said in a release.

Fontana said Jinshan’s technology business and the investment bank could be a future job generator.

“The North American market is a new frontier for Chinese companies. We are talking a lot of investment that could create a lot of jobs,” he said.

The long-awaited announcement came after Wang toured the city Tuesday with Fontana pointing out potential investment opportunities.

Tuesday’s meeting capped two years of negotiations and back-and-forth official visits between London and Jinshan’s headquarters in Chongqing, a Chinese city of 35 million people.

Fontana said Wang is influential as the head of a Chinese business association with 140,000 members.

“He sees London as a beachhead for other investment opportunities. He’s quite influential in China. If others see he is leading the way, this could be very good news for us.”

Gerry Macartney, general manager of the London Chamber of Commerce, said the Jinshan deal justifies the foreign trips and long-term efforts by London officials to break the city’s economic dependency on the U.S. market.

He said Lily Wang, head of the chamber’s Asian Business Opportunities Community, has a long-standing professional relationship with Wang and was a crucial link in the deal.

“I can understand why people are suspicious, but this is how you build new markets. This is typical of how you do business with the Chinese. It’s a relationship-building exercise that can take years,” Macartney said.

hank.daniszewski@sunmedia.ca

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