“If you think that Nordic people automatically will come and invest if you set up an industrial park in Ningbo, then you are wrong”, Mr. Nodland, who has also received the honorary citizen of Ningbo City award, says.
It all started back in 1999 as Mr. Nodland went to Ningbo, a Chinese harbor city unknown in the Nordic countries at the time, to found Daiyoo Electronic Company. The company specialized in custom manufacturing of high-performance magnets for the global industry.
Seeing the potential that China and Ningbo had, Nodland chose to introduce his achievements in Ningbo to other agents of business in his Norwegian hometown, Stavanger. At home he promoted Ningbo and urged his business acquaintances to set up companies there. This signified the beginning for the Nordic Industrial Park, one of the first wholly foreign owned industrial parks in China.
In 2002, after the park had been officially opened, Nodland’s Daiyoo Electronics was the only company in NIP. Nodland kept a firm belief that an industrial park with a Nordic style of management would in time attract others, and that ultimately more Nordic companies would come to settle in Ningbo. The opening of the Nordic Industrial Park in September 2002 was after all a historical event claiming the title as China's first foreign initiated Industrial park with backing from the local government.
Nodland set out working continuously to promote NIP in the Nordic countries. It is now evident that his efforts have paid off. Over the last decade he has himself witnessed and influenced the growth of the 100 percent Norwegian-owned industrial park, which today houses more than 40 Nordic companies.
“The last ten years have been great, as the park construction has been such a success”, Mr Nodland, says.