A new business office in Hangzhou, China has been established in hopes of bringing more business and investments to the City of Humboldt.

Mayor Rob Muench travelled to China back in September of 2018 and out of that visit a potential city to city relationship formed.

"We are establishing a bit of an office in Hangzhou China just to have them promote Humboldt as a city to city promotion. That way we are going city by city and it doesn't involve the federal government and the type of thing."

There is a commitment from the City of Humboldt of $300.00 per month. 

"They are applying for a grant from the federal government in China to establish this setup for us, and part of that is a commitment from our municipality of 20% of the cost. They are covering 80 we are covering 20. That's a pretty good deal in my mind, and Council has agreed to try this for a year, and then evaluate what kind of results we are getting."

The city is looking at developing a 'Needs and Gaps' survey alongside the Chamber of Commerce to see what residents need in Humboldt. 

"What we are looking for here is to come up with a needs and gaps survey that we can see what our community doesn't have and survey the residents to get an idea of they think we need in Humboldt and to try and match those up with potential investors."

An initial part of the money will go towards brochures and website development in the native language in Hangzhou to overcome any language barriers.

There are some investors currently interested in coming to Humboldt to visit, "We are definitely on their radar." Muench added.

Humboldt has invested in other markets before out of town trade shows etc. so this is a step in a different direction to see how it works.