The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, the Port of Antwerp and Flanders Investment & Trade are organizing the information session: A new ‘Single Permit’ for work and residence which will take place on 19 December at 12h00 at the Antwerp Port House, Zaha Hadidplein 1, 2030 Antwerp.

On 1 January 2019, the new Single Permit immigration scheme enters into force. In this seminar, we will focus on the changes this Single Permit scheme will bring and how the new process and rules will impact high-skilled immigration towards Belgium.

Your value in participating:
• Get an update and overview of the Single Permit legislation;
• Become familiar with the impact of the new rules on your mobile employees and your mobility management;
• Get tips and tricks on streamlining your immigration processes.

Program:
12u00-12u30 Registration and buffet lunch

12u30-12u40 Welcome introduction

12u40-13u00 Impact of the Single Permit Scheme

13u00-13u30 Regional immigration approach

13u30-14u00 Practical considerations

14u00-14u10 Conclusion

Speakers:
• Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce
• Matthias Lommers, Senior Director, Deloitte
• Joke Braam, Manager, Deloitte

If you are interested to participate in this session, please subscribe before 16 December 2018 via the this link.

Free of charge.

Share useful information and experience!

The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce (FCCC), VOKA and Flanders Investment and Trade (FIT) organized an event on the occasion of Week International Entrepreneurship: China, on 5 December 2018 at VOKA in Antwerp. In 2017 Flanders exported more than €7.3 billion to China, whereby the country climbed to the 9th spot on the list of the Flemish export. The family income of Chinese consumers keeps growing, leading to a higher living standard and rising demand for services in tourism, education, medical care and leisure spending.

Jill Suetens, Manager International, VOKA – KVK Antwerp-Waasland and Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce / EU-China Business Association, welcomed the participants. Flemish trade with China and actions by FIT was introduced by Michèle Surinx, Area Manager East-Asia, Flanders Investment and Trade. Filip DeLanghe, Urbanization Architect – Director AWG Architecten, gave a testimony on doing business in China. Sven Agten, Managing Partner, Agio Capital & Business Solutions China, talked about opportunities in new China. A networking reception concluded the event.

China and the United States took a big step forward in relations to reach a truce in the trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump said, as China prepared to send a big delegation to the U.S. for further talks after President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump had dinner together in Buenos Aires on December 1, when they agreed to hold off on imposing new tariffs for 90 days. “Relations with China have taken a BIG leap forward! Very good things will happen. We are dealing from great strength, but China likewise has much to gain if and when a deal is completed. Level the field!” Trump said in a tweet. Trump also said U.S. farmers would benefit from China’s agreement to buy more American agricultural products, and Beijing had agreed to “reduce and remove” tariffs on U.S. cars. Beijing raised tariffs on American cars to 40% over the summer as the tit-for-tat trade war escalated. A source familiar with the trade talks said China was expected to send about 30 officials to Washington for discussions, but it was not known who would be in the delegation. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would be in charge of negotiations with China over the next 90 days. However, President Trump warned that if the deal does not happen, “remember, I am a Tariff Man”. There is still some confusion in the White House when the 90-day period would start, on December 1 or January 1.

“As the next step, both sides will speed up negotiations based on the consensus reached between the two countries’ leaders,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said. The two sides have three months to tackle their differences over forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers and cyber intrusions. If there is no progress, the U.S. will go ahead with increases in duties that it had threatened to apply from January 1. Jake Parker, U.S.-China Business Council Vice President for China Operations, said the ceasefire delayed further escalation “but this is where the hard work begins”. “It is unreasonable to assume that all challenges in the relationship can be resolved in 90 days. Both sides should instead aim for substantive, measurable and commercially meaningful outcomes and a long-term engagement framework,” Parker said. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also warned that Beijing should avoid “soft commitments” in talks. “There is a 100% unanimous view on our economic team that this needs to be a real agreement,” Mnuchin was quoted as saying. He told CNBC that China had made trade commitments worth around USD1.2 trillion, but stressed that the details still needed to be negotiated.

Chinese President Xi Jinping “made the pitch himself” during the dinner with Donald Trump that ended with a truce in the trade war with the U.S., according to White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow, adding that it was unusual to see government leaders taking such a hands-on role in this type of negotiation. “We’ve never seen that hands-on participation by President Xi before. In fact, that dinner was quite remarkable,” Kudlow said. “President Xi engaged in a level of detail – you could even say he was selling this, which was, in my opinion, quite unusual for the head of state. Guys like me are supposed to know the details. He did. He made the pitch himself. I was impressed with that and I felt that bolstered the Chinese commitment. I may be wrong, but I believe it did,” Kudlow said. But there remains much skepticism as to what extent Beijing will deliver by the end of the 90-days, as the grace period is nowhere near long enough to allow the two sides to bridge the large differences between their positions on key issues.

Many companies located in the Pearl River Delta who were considering to relocate their operations to Vietnam if the tariffs would be raised from 10% to 25% have put their plans on hold. Xie Jun, a furniture exporter based in Zhejiang province, said the cost of building a new factory in Vietnam had soared in the past few months and become unaffordable to many. “So the trade war truce is really a relief for us, and we hope the government can really end the trade war next year,” Xie said. While there are no official statistics, this year some 5,000 to 6,000 factories based in mainland China – owned by Hong Kong or Taiwan investors, or by private mainland investors – have sent their people to look into moving production to Vietnam to guard against the rise in tariffs on made-in-China exports, analysts said according to the South China Morning Post. The monthly rent for existing factory buildings in popular industrial parks near Ho Chi Minh City has risen to USD4 per square meter from USD3 last year, according to Vincy Nguyen, Greater China sales manager of BW Industrial Development, which builds and manages industrial parks.

China has begun preparing to restart imports of U.S. soybeans and liquefied natural gas (LNG), as it agreed to buy some U.S. products “immediately”, but it is not known whether the preparations meant China would cut the retaliatory tariffs it imposed on those products, or when the purchases would happen.

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Chinese telecom company Huawei, Sabrina Meng, 41, has been detained by Canadian authorities on December 1 in Vancouver as she transferred to a flight to Mexico, at the request of the U.S. government. U.S. prosecutors alleged that she violated U.S. sanctions on Iran between 2009 and 2014 and engaged in “conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions” in 2013 when she attempted to convince bankers that Huawei and a former Hong Kong subsidiary SkyCom were wholly separate entities when in fact they were not. Meng is the daughter of Huawei’s Founder Ren Zhengfei, but adopted her mother’s surname. She is considered a leading contender to succeed her father at the head of the company and is Vice Chairperson of the Board of Directors. She is risking up to 30 years imprisonment in an U.S. jail.

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa protested the move in a statement issued shortly after the Canadian government made the detention public. It said in a statement: “The Chinese side has lodged stern representations with the U.S. and Canadian side, urged them to immediately correct the wrongdoing and restore the personal liberty of Ms. Meng Wanzhou. Huawei stated: “The company has been provided very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng. The company believes the Canadian and U.S. legal systems will ultimately reach a just conclusion.” “Huawei complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operates, including applicable export control and sanction laws and regulations of the UN, U.S. and EU,” the company added.

Following the news of the CFO’s arrest, stocks of Huawei’s suppliers tumbled in mainland China and Hong Kong trading. If Meng fights extradition, her case could go on for years, lawyers said, but if she chooses not to fight, she could be in the United States within weeks. The Chinese government warned Canada that it would face “grave consequences” if Meng is not freed. China’s Foreign Ministry called in the Canadian and U.S. Ambassadors to lodge a protest.

There is also growing anxiety that U.S. executives in China may be targeted in retaliation for the “aggressive” U.S. action. Bill Bishop, China watcher and publisher of the Sinocism newsletter, said Chinese retaliation in tit-for-tat form would be “explosive”. But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China “has always protected the legitimate rights and interests of foreign nationals in China and they should obey Chinese laws when they are in China”. Chinese corporate executives are also concerned. They fear that the arrest of an individual executive at a prominent Chinese firm means the U.S. has become more aggressive in its strategy to erode China’s technological advances and so could take aim at any executive at any Chinese tech firm at any time.

U.S. authorities have been investigating Huawei since at least 2016 for allegedly shipping U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws. U.S. security services also suspect that Huawei equipment could be used for espionage purposes and government agencies are prohibited from buying Huawei products. Australia has followed the U.S. in banning Huawei’s equipment from the country’s 5G roll-out. Spark, New Zealand’s biggest telecoms network operator, also said that the country’s intelligence agency blocked its proposal to use Huawei’s equipment for its 5G development plans, and BT Group of the UK would remove Huawei’s gear from its core 4G network within two years, and would not use the Chinese company’s products in central parts of the next-generation 5G network. Huawei has been in Britain for more than 17 years, with its equipment checked and monitored by a special company laboratory overseen by government and intelligence operators.

China’s push to lead the global development and roll-out of 5G mobile networks could be at risk, following the arrest of Meng, analysts said, as the company might incur U.S. sanctions. “It is not yet clear whether there has been a breach committed, but for the CFO to be detained we can expect serious accusations to be levied against Huawei in the coming days,” said Paul Haswell, Partner at law firm Pinsent Masons. In Belgium, the Center for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) is investigating whether to recommend banning Huawei’s equipment from the networks of Proximus and Orange Belgium.

Meanwhile, Huawei Technologies has signed a contract to upgrade Portugal’s No 1 phone network to the 5G standard, giving the Chinese company its 23rd global network client – 15 in Europe, five in the Middle East and three in Asia – to extend its lead as the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, ahead of Nokia and Ericsson. The company will supply the equipment and software to Altice Portugal.

Earlier this year, Shenzhen-based ZTE was brought to the brink of collapse after the U.S. activated an export ban that prohibited American companies from doing business with the telecommunications equipment company. The ban was subsequently lifted under a new 10-year probation, a USD1.76 billion fine, and the placement of U.S. compliance officers at the company. Unlike ZTE, Huawei has not been formally accused of breaching U.S. export sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

Alibaba’s Executive Chairman Jack Ma (left) and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel (right) at a previous event

Alibaba Group Holding has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Belgian government to extend its electronic world trade platform (eWTP) to Liege. Belgium thereby becomes the third country to welcome Alibaba’s initiative after Malaysia and Rwanda. eWTP seeks to lower barriers to global trade for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). “With over 98% of European companies being small to medium businesses, this partnership signifies our initial and expanded effort to enhance inclusive trade opportunities for these businesses in Belgium and across Europe,” Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said in a statement.

Alibaba-owned Cainiao Smart Logistics Network signed a contract with Liege Airport to lease a 220,000-square meter site where the Chinese company will build a smart logistics hub. Alibaba estimated the project will entail an initial investment of €75 million, with the first phase of operations expected to start in 2021. “The arrival of Cainiao reinforces the competitiveness of our airport,” Liege Airport Chief Executive Luc Partoune said. “Several Chinese companies are already here.” In September, Alibaba said it plans to invest CNY100 billion to strengthen its global logistics network over the next five years.

The eWTP was conceived by Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma in 2016 as an electronic Silk Road to connect every country and give SMEs the ability to sell anywhere in the world. The benefits of using eWTP hubs include speedy customs clearance, logistics support and minimal tariffs. The first such hub was set up by Alibaba in its home base of Hangzhou, while Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur became the first city outside China to become part of the initiative. The Malaysian hub is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. Rwanda recently became the first African nation to join the eWTP. Alibaba promised to help SMEs in Rwanda sell their products, such as coffee beans, on its online marketplaces. Alibaba sold a record CNY213.5 billion during its Singles’ Day shopping promotion on November 11, with health supplements, milk powder, diapers and skincare products among the most highly sought imported goods, the South China Morning Post – which is owned by Alibaba – reports.

The agreement on the eWTP initiative in Belgium is the first such deal with a European country to promote inclusive global trade. “This will be a huge opportunity to boost exports and bring wide-ranging economic benefits to society, including employment opportunities to Liege,” said Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel. Alibaba said the new smart logistics hub will be the cornerstone of the eWTP infrastructure collaboration and facilitate access to the Chinese market. In addition to the logistics hub, Alibaba and the Belgian government will work to digitize and streamline customs procedures to allow for a more efficient clearance of goods. Alibaba and Belgian trade and investment agencies will also work on promotions, marketing and direct imports of Belgian products to increase their sales on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Alibaba will also promote Belgium as an attractive destination for Chinese tourists.