Shanghaiko Euskal Etxea

The Shanghaiko Euskal Etxea was founded in January 2005 by Basque professionals whose companies had taken them to Shanghai, and it is the only Basque centre in China. Its founder and first president, Juan Ignacio García de Mutiloa, from Vitoria-Gasteiz, had arrived in 2002 to open the office of the public company SPRI. It started with seventeen founding members, and two years later it had 43 individual members and 10 companies, among them Ulma Construcción, Fagor Automation, Fagor Arrasate, Orkli and Danobat. On Sundays there was potato omelette, mus championships and cookery courses, and according to Mutiloa it also served as a professional meeting point, where people talked about the problems of doing business in China. The Basque Government recognised it on 30 December 2008, and it has organised the Korrika in China.