POLITICIANS heading off on overseas assignments are always fair game when it comes to criticisms of taxpayer-funded ‘jollies’. The several missions to China fell into that category and the complaints are still coming in.

Yet anyone who harboured doubts would have had them dispelled on Sunday when the vice-mayor of Shanghai made it clear how much he and his delegation had enjoyed their visit here – and what they hoped to get out of it.

Indeed, perhaps more telling than his remarks was the fact-finding trip here taking place at all plus the calibre of the visitors. It was a serious delegation from the heart of Shanghai’s government and was a strong declaration of intent that the city wants to do serious business with Guernsey.

Asked why they had made the detour to Guernsey after going to Switzerland and en route to London, the answer was direct: because of personal contacts made by former chief minister Mike Torode and current office holder Lyndon Trott.

Without that the invitation would not have been accepted, so the preparatory visits to China were money well spent and part of a plan to increase business opportunities for the island.

To date, Guernsey’s chief trading partners are the City of London and New York and there is a need to diversify into other globally-emerging countries. China and India are the targets and the groundwork with Shanghai now has every appearance of paying off.

For government, which is fully backed by the financial services sector, trying to develop new markets is a difficult area because of the risk involved. Private businesses and institutions simply put a business case together with a budget and accept that some prospects will inevitably fail but that the successes will outweigh any losses.

It is not so simple for those responsible for taxpayers’ money. Voters are a critical audience and politicians and their advisers therefore tend to become risk averse, which means opportunities are missed.

Yet Guernsey succeeds because it is entrepreneurial and States thinking has to reflect at least some of that approach.

In the case of Shanghai, it seems that it has.