One of those companies with boots on the ground is the Leeside company Wilson Architecture, which was awarded a major design contract by Qilu Pharmaceutical Company, one of China's leading pharma outfits.

Qilu is developing a major new greenfield biopharma campus in Jinan, in the east, and Wilson Architecture has been awarded the design of all the front-of-house buildings, it was announced during President Higgins’s visit.

As we have reported in Asia Briefing before, Wilson has boots on the ground in China, with a design office in Dalian in the northeast, where it has completed several design commissions, for both local government and corporate clients.

"In particular, the rapidly expanding pharmaceutical sector in China offers huge potential, and Enterprise Ireland has been highly supportive in helping us research this market and in securing this important new contract," said Frank O'Mahony, managing director of Wilson, who spends a lot of time in China overseeing the company's projects.