If there is one United States industry that has survived the recession intact, it is the business of finding a home for a growing pile of Chinese money. Want to open a manufacturing facility in Michigan? There is a consulting firm for that. Want to set up offices in Manhattan? There are financial incentives for that. In fact, if there is anything at all that strikes your fancy in Georgia, the state's economic development commissioner wants you to know that it is a good, safe place to invest, and that 80 per cent of the US population is within a two-day truck ride or a two-hour flight. 'We are opportunistic,' said Ken Stewart, who is in China this week to give seminars designed to attract investors. He said: 'We're looking for companies that need access to the US and that have the capacity to invest ... Our ultimate success is for there to be more investment and jobs in Georgia.' While the anti-China rhetoric reached fever-pitch in Washington before the Group of 20 meeting, it is a different story at the local level. Eager for Chinese money to revive jobs, American entrepreneurs, developers and officials are booking flights to China and welcoming delegations of potential investors. There is good reason for that. The last quarter of 2009 saw a record volume of Chinese commitments to build factories or open offices in the US, consulting firm Deloitte said, as well as mergers and acquisitions. The announced capital investments averaged US$41 million and included plans to build green technology manufacturing facilities. Total numbers are hard to pin down, but Chinese capital investments still only account for a tiny slice of the American economy. Several high-profile deals in recent years have collapsed under political pressure or regulatory scrutiny from both countries, but US business leaders and officials are expecting a big upswing as Chinese firms look to expand and make use of a stronger yuan. 'China is a country of the future for us,' said Stewart, who looks to the example of the Japanese operations in Georgia as a model for what China might achieve. As a result, even cash-strapped local governments are making their own investments in attracting Chinese firms. Georgia is one of more than four dozen American ports, cities and states with a presence in mainland China, according to Paul Swenson, who heads the Council of American States in China and represents the interests of several states from his office in Shanghai. 'In 2005 when we started the organisation, [promoting investment] was still a very small part of everything that we did,' Swenson said. 'By 2007, we really started to see a lot of state offices starting to open, with the primary focus on promoting foreign direct investment.' Lately, the memory of fiascos like CNOOC's 2005 bid for Unocal Corp was fading, Swenson said. That bid was withdrawn after it raised a political firestorm among American legislators. US federal government programmes designed to boost foreign direct investment during the recession have helped ease firms' concerns that the country was not ready for Chinese money, he said. But as the US mid-term elections approach, Chinese business has become a political football in some regions, adding a level of peril to luring Chinese capital. 'For reasons that are probably politically related, we don't get much support' from the state, Peter Theut, a Michigan-based lawyer who facilitates business exchanges with China, said. Theut left his law firm last year to concentrate on a new enterprise, China Bridge, offering consulting services to Chinese companies interested in setting up shop in Michigan, or buying assets in a state where the fall of the car industry has left a legacy of skilled, underemployed workers. China Bridge works with local county officials who are more than enthusiastic, he said, about the possibility of bringing manufacturing facilities - including vehicle parts and green technology - to their areas. One of the bigger ventures in the industry of promoting and facilitating Chinese investment is a Chinese firm, providing a signal that the interest is not only from the US side. China Centre is an enterprise funded by Beijing Vantone Real Estate to provide a sort of 'safe house' for Chinese corporations looking to settle in the US. Last year, it signed over a US$10 million line of credit to become the first private tenant of the as-yet-unbuilt World Trade Centre. China Centre was rewarded with US$3 million in venture capital from the private New York City Investment Fund, and rent reductions from New York State's development corporation, which has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. But will these efforts win significant investments from China? 'That's the $64,000 question that everyone claims they can answer,' Clarence Kwan, who leads Deloitte's efforts to assist Chinese companies investing in the US, said. The lion's share of Chinese investment into the US comes from central government transactions like the purchase of US Treasury bonds - not the kind of investment that provokes encouragement or facilitation from US agencies or consulting firms. But Kwan believes the current trend indicates that there will be an increase in the kinds of mid-sized companies that invest in China for business reasons. The smaller firms are precisely the companies that need help with things like finding suitable investments, navigating political crosswinds and complying with regulatory requirements, he said. Ye-Fan Wang Glavin heads an Ohio-based project called China Invests in America, which emerged from an executive education programme run by Tsinghua University in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce. She frequently hosts delegations from China interested in investing in the US because they want to expand to be closer to the consuming marketplace, or because the US has the technology and expertise they need. Non-profit groups, private consulting firms and local governments can help Chinese companies with a lot of things, she said. But one of the biggest frustrations executives face is overcoming immigration hurdles. Only federal immigration reform would solve that problem, she said. Cash from China Chinese commitments to build US factories or open offices are rising In the final quarter of last year, the announced capital investments average, in US$: $41m