On October 3, 2017, the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, represented by Philippe Van der Donckt, Vice-Chairman and Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, signed a structural partnership agreement with Flanders Investment and Trade, represented by Claire Tillekaerts, CEO. The signing took place during an official ceremony at the Errera House in Brussels in the presence of Flanders’ Minister-President Geert Bourgeois, formally recognizing the reinforced collaboration. This partnership is part of the ‘Vlaanderen versnelt!’ (‘Flanders accelerates!’), Flanders’ internationalization strategy.

The FCCC and FIT are cooperating in order to better support the international strategy of Flemish companies. Both partners will focus on promoting the economic, trade and scientific relations between Flanders and China. A common vision, close cooperation, and exchange of information between FIT and FCCC will support Flemish companies doing business in China. Chinese companies aiming to invest in Flanders will receive goal-focused assistance. On a European scale, the advantages of Flanders will be effectively promoted through the EU-China Business Association for which the FCCC acts as Vice Chairman and Secretary General.

Besides the FCCC, FIT also signed partnership agreements with 16 chambers of commerce, federations and clusters to accelerate the internationalization of Flemish companies. The partnerships will cover the years 2017-2021 and enhance previous cooperation on a project basis. They are based on equal co-financing between FIT and the partners and critical performance indicators will be evaluated on a yearly basis.

China’s transport system had to cope with millions more travelers during the National Day “Golden Week” as the number of trips made over the break rose 11.9% to 705 million compared with the same holiday last year. Holiday makers spent CNY583.6 billion, or 13.9% more than last year. The ‘Golden Week’ holiday – starting on China’s National Day on October 1 – was extended by one more day to October 8 because the Mid-Autumn Festival fell within the week this year.

The number of outbound tourists was roughly the same as last year at about 6 million, but more travelers were opting to go travel by themselves rather than join a tour group. Since 2012, China has become the largest source of outgoing tourists, accounting for a large share of global tourism, Zhu Shanzhong, Executive Director of the World Tourism Organization said. 65 countries and regions are providing visa-free and visa-on-arrival access to Chinese citizens and, during this year’s National Day holiday, 88 countries and regions received Chinese visitors, up from 68 countries last year, CCTV reported. Russia was the most popular destination for Chinese tourists, followed by Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia, while Moscow was the most popular city, followed by St. Petersburg, Bangkok, Pattaya, and Singapore, according to the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).

Travelers made about 105 million train trips since the holiday rush started on September 28, the China Railway Corp (CRC) said. About 40% of the journeys were on high-speed lines. The number of travelers passing through Shanghai’s Hongqiao and Pudong airports between September 30 and October 7 jumped 6.6% to 874,000 from a year ago. Travel agencies in Shanghai organized trips for 104,000 outbound tourists, surging 62.4%.

Foreign businesses are becoming increasingly frustrated by Beijing’s lack of action to open up its markets, according to the European Union’s Ambassador to China, Hans-Dietmar Schweisgut. “It is leading to more frustration among the European business community that they haven’t seen their words translated into action,” he told the South China Morning Post. “Companies see the rising gap between rhetoric and what’s happening.”

President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in January, firmly endorsing free trade and has promised to further open up the country’s market. The central government pressured its departments to work out a timetable by the end of September to ease market restrictions. In the meantime, however, there are signs of new trade and investment barriers in China. Foreign firms are also complaining about the possibility they will be forced to make technology transfers in exchange for market access.
“Foreign companies are increasingly discouraged by the fact that policy announcements and the objectives of market openness are not translated into action,” the Ambassador said. “There is a more cautious attitude and more reluctance to take those announcements at face value.” There is growing discontent about the lack of reciprocity, with the almost unlimited investment possibilities in the EU for Chinese investors compared with the restrictions foreign investors face in China in fields such as cars, health care, insurance and telecoms.

So far the EU does not have an agency like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to review foreign investments, but its member states have set up or tightened their own investment legislation. The EU Ambassador said the proposals were designed for security and to protect public order, and where not directed at any one country. “This is not designed to be an instrument to restrict Chinese investment into Europe,” Ambassador Schweisgut said.

China’s investment in the EU last year grew by 77% compared with 2015 to €35 billion, while the EU’s investment in China fell for the fourth straight year to €8 billion, down 23% last year. The EU Ambassador said the EU’s investment into China was only a fraction of the EU’s investment into the United States, and there was great potential to expand EU investment into China.

“In the future, if you look at the size and importance of our economies, it would be a huge waste of opportunity not to fully utilize this potential,” he told the South China Morning Post.

As recently as the spring of last year, a nearly 2% decline in China’s currency in a week would have sent global markets into a tailspin. But 18 months later, the muted response on the part of international investors a 1.9% decline in the yuan versus the dollar – the sharpest weekly drop since the surprise devaluation of China’s currency on August 11, 2015 which triggered a dramatic deterioration in sentiment – is one of the clearest signs of the persistent bullishness in markets in the face of mounting financial and geo-political risks.

While the onshore yuan hit a 21-month high against the greenback as recently as September 8, partly due to this year’s plunge in the dollar, the recent decision by China’s central bank to scrap two trading curbs designed to deter speculation against the currency reveal the extent to which sentiment towards China itself has improved and the degree to which global financial conditions have eased, in part because of the steep decline in the dollar.

In the same week in which the yuan suffered its sharpest fall in more than two years, the Shanghai Composite Index barely budged, having risen 9% since the end of May, in stark contrast to its 24% decline in the six weeks following the August 2015 devaluation. Beijing’s success in stemming capital outflows and stabilizing the yuan – China’s capital flow even turned positive in the first half of this year while the yuan is still up more than 4% versus the dollar since the start of this year – has been helped by a confluence of favorable external factors that have pushed the dollar index down nearly 10% to its lowest level since April 2016, the South China Morning Post reports.

Businesses in China are being urged to prepare themselves for a new environmental tax that could hit many of them hard when it comes into effect at the start of next year.

China will abandon its current system under which polluters are charged locally in favor of the nationwide environmental protection levy – designed to reduce air, soil and water contamination – from January 1. The new regime will see firms that cause pollution taxed under a uniform set of national rules rather than the fees being collected at the local level. For instance, polluters nationwide will face a levy of between CNY1.2 and CNY12 for every 0.95 kilogram of nitrogen oxide or sulphur dioxide they release.

Kenneth Leung, EY Greater China’s indirect tax leader, said the “fee to tax” shift could cost some large state-owned businesses in the chemicals and energy sector 40% to 300% more than they were paying under the previous system. “Many businesses appear to be underprepared to cope with the new taxation and are lagging behind in adapting their operational procedures to factor in the impact from it,” Leung said. He urged businesses to carry out detailed assessments of the financial and operational impacts of the new levy as well as ways to enhance procedures and technologies aimed at reducing pollutants.
“If the new tax doesn’t lead to changes in business behavior, damage to the environment could continue and could end up being beyond remedy,” he said. “The impact could be more significant than tax revenue to the government, or profits or loss to businesses.”
The Ministry of Finance, State Administration of Taxation and Ministry of Environmental Protection in mid-August this year issued a joint edict on the implementation of the environmental protection tax, after public consultation, the South China Morning Post reports.

An earlier official study estimated the tax could bring in CNY50 billion a year, about three times the total raised from the fees collected from 280,000 companies in 2015. Between 2003 and 2015, China collected CNY211.6 billion in pollutant fees, Xinhua has reported previously.