2015年CRI Business Leaders in Seattle Talk About Xi's Visit（在线收听）

The Chamber is one of the most active commercial organizations on the U.S. west coast with more than 2,300 enterprise members including Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks. 

Maud Daudon, CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, talks about the ties between the city's business community and Asian countries such as China.

"We are very Asia-facing, I would say. We do understand that our future is connected to the future of the Pacific Rim. This has been our history for a very long time here."

She also said that they are actively preparing for President Xi's visit.

"For one thing we've been very engaged in preparations for his visit. So we have been a part of a team trying to sort out how to make sure that the companies who can best interface with China at present and be able to make connections and build relationships. So that's the key part of what we do. That's not easy because there are so many companies who would love to have the chance to be involved."

The Chinese president is scheduled to visit some companies in Seattle, including the headquarters and a manufacturing plant of aviation giant Boeing.

Randy Tinseth is the vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle.

"We are very excited that President Xi will be coming to visit Boeing. He is the third Chinese leader to come to visit Boeing and I think it speaks to the strong relationship we have with the Chinese aviation industry. Next week, there will be leaders from business around the state of Washington. They will meet President Xi, and our president and CEO Raymond Conner from the commercial side of our business will be there. He is very excited, I'm sure." 

President Xi Jinping will attend a roundtable organized by The Paulson Institute and hosted by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in Seattle.

Fifteen chief executives of prominent U.S. companies -- and the same number from China -- will participate. 

Big names such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Boeing and Amazon are on the list.

They will be joined with leaders of Chinese Internet giants such as Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.

For CRI, I'm Xie Cheng.