US Economists: China Bid For Unocal Benefit US Economy

Some American leading economists have said that China's takeover bids for Unocal Corp. and Maytag Corp., might benefit the American economy despites parking a political outcry in Congress.

Overseas takeovers of US firms often brought an inclusion of capital and additional markets, according to Catherine L. Mann, an economist at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.

"It turns them into a stakeholder," said Stephen Roach, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley Co. in New York. He further noted that it was better for the US economy to have China using some of the dollars generated by its trade surplus with the United States to acquire American corporations.

Donald H. Straszhein, former Merrill Lynch & Co. chief economist, said that China's buying of American corporations was "just the beginning", and "there are going to be big numbers in the next couple of years." He predicted that Chinese acquisitions of US companies would approach 80 billion dollars over the next two years, up from an estimated 7 billion dollars in 2004 and about 344 million dollars five year ago.

"Foreign investment generally delivers better jobs to Americans," said Dan Griswold, a trade analyst of a Washington-based research group. "We sacrifice our own economic well-being if we create a hostile environment."