The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce is organizing the China Immersion Programme: ‘Negotiating with the Chinese and China Entry Strategies’, which will take place on 19 March at 10h00 at Provinciehuis, Gouvernementstraat 1, 9000 Ghent (Parking: Reep).

Mr. Bo Ji, Chief Representative Europe & Assistant Dean Global Executive Education of the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, will be the keynote speaker.

China has embarked on unprecedented economic growth since its market opened up four decades ago, rising to become the world’s second-largest economy today. What is happening in China? What are the new increasing business opportunities that attract European companies? How can you break into the Chinese market and win your customers there?

Companies with the ambition of global expansion, especially those who are eager to enter the Chinese market, should have a better understanding of how to negotiate with the Chinese. However, due to the cultural differences and the shifting dynamics of the business context, it is not easy for all business leaders. Today, effective communication and negotiation skills play a crucial role in a company’s success in China.

Attendees will gain a comparative understanding of the practical Chinese and Western approaches to negotiation as well as sharpen their own negotiation skills through learning from multiple case studies and real-life contexts. Furthermore, they will identify the cultural roots behind business scenarios, which will provide them with the knowledge to reshape their strategies and tactics. The attending business leaders will also learn to optimize their approach to a win-win value creation through negotiating with the Chinese to achieve a sustainable partnership.

The event contains a comprehensive discussion of the Chinese culture and the business environment in China. There is also a large selection of real-life case studies of western companies that have failed in China, which could deepen your understanding of how to avoid mistakes. Finally, the course aims to find you the right China entry strategies and business models.

The morning session: Negotiating with the Chinese: Cultural Roots & Practical Recommendations


This session offers guidance to business leaders on how to leverage cultural differences, complexity, uncertainty, and conflicts during the negotiation process with their Chinese partners.

The afternoon session: Win in China: Business Models & China Entry Strategies


The authoritative China guidance helps you learn the best tried-and-tested China concepts to today’s ever-changing environment and discover strategies that enable you to thrive in China.

Programme


10:00 – 10:15 Signup & Networking

10:15 – 10:30 Opening Remarks and introduction, Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce

10:30 – 12:00 Keynote Speech “Negotiating with the Chinese: Cultural Roots & Practical Recommendations”, Bo Ji, Chief Representative & Assistant Dean of CKGSB Europe

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break & Networking

13:00 – 14:30 Keynote Speech “Win in China: Business Models & China Entry Strategies”, Bo Ji, Chief Representative & Assistant Dean of CKGSB Europe

14:30 – 15:00 Q&A Session about China

15:00 – 16:00 Networking

The participation fee for this event is:


Morning or Afternoon Session, lunch included:


Members (excl. VAT): €195

Whole Day price:

Members (excl. VAT): €325

For non-member fees, please check our website. For more information about the speaker, please check our website.

If you are interested to participate in this session, please subscribe before 16 March 2019 via this link (Eventbrite) or this link (FCCC website).

Experience of previous participants:
“The enthusiasm of the speaker was remarkable. Through the experiences of the lecturer everything was very understandable and clear. There was a lot of interaction in the group, which allowed us to know the experiences of others.”

Another quote from Christian De Cartier, M&A Director of Ontex Group:
“A very interesting workshop that covered some fascinating topics! I would recommend it!”

Peter Cannaerts, Purchasing Manager of Agfa Graphics:
“A very dynamic speaker and a very interesting workshop where the diversity of the group was a big advantage. In addition to the speakers information and tips, we could learn through the experiences of each participant.”

Contact: FCCC: info@flanders-china.be

(from left to right) U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S.Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Beijing

Chinese President Xi Jinping met the U.S. trade delegation in Beijing for talks on the trade war, including Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Xi said “China would like to address the problems of economic and trade frictions with the United States in a cooperative way to promote the conclusion of a deal acceptable to both sides.” It was the first time the Chinese President met with the U.S. trade delegation since the trade talks began last year. The talks are this week moving to Washington as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is being prepared. There is still no firm date for Presidents Trump and Xi to meet and seal a final agreement.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that the talks “went extremely well” and that he was inclined to push back the March 1 deadline after which U.S. import tariffs on USD200 billion of Chinese goods would be raised from 10% to 25% in the absence of a deal. “If we’re close to a deal where we think we can make a real deal, and it’s going to get done, I could see myself letting that slide for a little while,”Trump said, perhaps extending the deadline by 60 days. “We want very much to make a deal,” Trump said. He added that a delay was justified, based on the scope and scale of the talks. Speaking on the White House lawn, he said: “Trade with China – how big does that get? It must be the biggest deal in history.”

Seven U.S. Democratic Senators urged President Donald Trump to press China for a trade deal that fully addresses the technology transfer and intellectual property concerns. Led by Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the Senators said in a letter to Trump that any deal with Beijing must at a minimum commit China to “cease the predatory practices” identified in the section 301 investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which formed the basis for U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

Trade flows between China and the United States are shrinking quickly as a result of the trade war. Chinese imports of U.S. products plunged 41.1% from a year earlier to USD9.2 billion last month, the lowest since February 2016, according to the Chinese General Administration of Customs. The fall in U.S. exports to China contrasted sharply with China’s overall imports last month, which remained largely steady with only a 1.5% fall year-on-year. China’s imports from the U.S. have now fallen for eight consecutive months, month-on-month, the longest period of continuous decline since monthly bilateral trade data was first made available in 1999. In January alone, China’s imports from the U.S. were smaller than its imports from Australia, South Korea, Taiwan or Germany. One of the few U.S. products China is buying more of is soybeans, increasing 29% from December, after China agreed to make more purchases during trade negotiations. Going the other way, Chinese exports to the U.S. fell slightly, down 2.4% to USD36.5 billion in January.

The United States must change course and compete smarter with China rather than sever ties between the world’s two biggest economies, a group of prominent American China-watchers and former U.S. officials has warned in a report by a task force led by Orville Schell of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Susan Shirk, who is now with the University of California San Diego’s 21st Century China Center. While the 17 members of the group supported a tougher approach against Beijing, they said the present U.S. strategy was “defective” in various aspects including the economy and security.

Huawei Technologies plans legal action against accusations by official agencies of several countries that its telecom equipment may be used by the Chinese authorities to spy on its clients.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a visit to Budapest, Hungary, that the presence of Huawei complicates the country’s partnership with the U.S. Earlier, U.S. ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland made a similar warning. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in Warsaw that the U.S. welcomes Poland’s commitment to “protecting the telecoms sector from China”. Poland arrested a Chinese employee of Huawei and a former Polish security official on spying allegations. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said that U.S. actions using state agencies to suppress and block Chinese high-tech companies are unjust and immoral, and totally unfit for a major world power. Separately, Republican Senator Marco Rubio has proposed legislation that would restrict and tax Chinese investments in the U.S. to counter Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” industrial modernization program, which includes direct subsidies for domestic companies developing advanced semiconductors.

Some dissenting voices disagree with the allegations against Huawei. Robert Hannigan, Britain’s former Director of spy agency GCHQ, has characterized the “chorus of voices” calling for a blanket ban on Chinese companies like Huawei Technologies from telecommunications networks in Western countries as being “short on technical understanding” of cybersecurity and the complexities of 5G networks. While GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Center “has been blunt about Huawei’s shortcomings in security engineering and in its general attitude to cybersecurity”, it has “never found evidence of malicious Chinese state cyber activity through Huawei”, Hannigan wrote in the Financial Times.

That assessment is based on GCHQ’s evaluation of Huawei’s presence in British telecoms networks over some years, which has given it detailed insights into the company’s hardware, code, processes and policies. A blanket security ban based on a company’s nationality is likely to be ineffective as state-linked cyber espionage attacks on IT-managed services providers around the world do not require the manipulation of companies such as Huawei, he added. Hannigan is now a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “Assertions that any Chinese technology in any part of a 5G network represents an unacceptable risk are nonsense,” he concluded. Hannigan said that the UK and other European countries should “hold their nerve” and base decisions on Chinese involvement in future telecom networks on technical expertise and rational risk assessment instead of “political fashion or trade wars”.

The CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) have studied Huawei’s operations for over a decade, but they have not found a “smoking gun” showing conclusively that Huawei executives have helped Chinese security services penetrate America’s wireless networks. Still, President Trump is considering to order an new investigation which could lead to banning Huawei and other Chinese IT companies from selling their products in the U.S. and banning U.S. companies from selling components to them. Chinese telecom sales to the United States are tiny. Huawei has effectively been blacklisted by Washington for several years and made little market headway beyond limited sales in rural markets.

The company also received some good news: Philippines-based network operator Globe Telecom said the security concerns had been overblown and that it would push on with a planned roll-out of its 5G commercial services in the second quarter of the year.

Huawei became the world’s third-largest buyer of semiconductors last year, with its expenditure on purchasing chips witnessing the largest growth among the top five companies, according to research firm Gartner. Huawei spent over USD21 billion on semiconductor chips last year, accounting for 4.4% of the total worldwide market. It increased its chip spending by 45.2%, overtaking Dell and Lenovo Group to the third spot. Three other Chinese companies, Lenovo, BBK Electronics and Xiaomi Corp, ranked in the top 10 semiconductor buyers in 2018. Samsung Electronics and Apple remained the top two semiconductor chip buyers in 2018 with a 17.9% market. Huawei shipped 30 million smartphones in the domestic market in the fourth quarter of last year, up 23.3% year-on-year. It topped the list with a market share of 29%, according to research firm IDC.

The 7-day Lunar New Year Holiday has always been an important barometer of consumption for the entire year. The combined sales of retail and catering enterprises in China rose 8.5% year-on-year to a new high of CNY1.01 trillion from February 4 to10, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM). Lunar New Year’s Eve dinners, and dinners with relatives and friends dominated the festival. But a lot more Chinese chose not to cook this year, resulting in an increase in Lunar New Year’s Eve take-out orders by various degrees in different cities. Beijing’s major restaurants saw their revenue up by more than 10% during the holiday compared with the same period of last year. More Chinese also ordered ready to eat meals through e-commerce platforms or hired a chef to cook meals at home. On one online ordering platform, the number of orders for Lunar New Year’s Eve dinners increased 107%, according to MOFCOM.

While making special purchases for the holiday, more Chinese favored imported food such as cranberries from North America, avocados from Myanmar, codfish from New Zealand, lobster from Boston and cherries from Chile. Apart from exotic foreign food, Chinese consumers also paid more attention to product quality, with the sales of organic food, smart home appliances and new electronic devices seeing fast growth.

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said its sales from February 3 to 7 rose 42.7% year-on-year, with smartphones, computers and home appliances being the top three items in terms of sales value. Cooking utensils posted the most substantial growth at 399% year-on-year, with people tending to prefer higher-end products in this category, the company said.

The Spring Festival once again unleashed China’s annual travel rush, with an increasing number of people opting to celebrate the holiday by traveling to tourist attractions. There was a 19% year-on-year growth in the number of Chinese tourists during the Spring Festival holiday, according to data from Fliggy, an online tourism service provider. A total of 12.59 million air passenger trips were made, up 10.6% from last year’s holiday, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). Around 111,000 flights were made during the period, up 6% year-on-year. Domestic tourism revenues rose 8.2% year-on-year to CNY513.9 billion during the holiday. The number of overseas trips taken by Chinese increased by 28%. Ctrip, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said countries along the Belt and Road such as Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates and Cambodia are among the most popular outbound destinations. The number of visitors to East European countries increased by nearly 40%.

China UnionPay said transactions over the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday surged 71.5% to a record-high of CNY1.16 trillion. Spending on gold accessories jumped 90% from a year earlier, while cultural entertainment spending more than doubled. The number of payments through UnionPay’s mobile platform increased 2.5 times, and the amount jumped 4.4 times.

During the 40-day travel rush from January 21 to March 1, air travelers are expected to make 73 million trips, up 12%, the Shanghai Daily reports.

Chinese consumers, who created the world’s largest automobile market in a generation, are discovering that new is not everything. They are increasingly buying second-hand cars, eschewing first-hand models, as economic growth in China weakens to its slowest pace in decades and an ongoing trade war with the United States spills over into uncertainties about investment and job prospects. Consumer confidence in second-hand cars is also being boosted by an evolving ecosystem of financing, used-car dealerships, better ownership data and insurance.

A decade ago most Chinese drivers did not want to buy a second-hand vehicle, but trends are changing. Transactions involving new cars fell by 2.8% in 2018 to 28.1 million units, while sales of second-hand vehicles jumped by 11.5% to 13.8 million units. The ratio of second-hand vehicles to new models stood at 49.1%, a 6 percentage point growth over 43% in 2017, according to the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA). In the United States, in comparison, sales of used cars far outnumber purchases of new vehicles and this trend has been on the rise in recent years.

The increasing popularity of second-hand cars at home could mean trouble for Chinese carmakers, spurring them to look for export markets in which to sell some of the 28 million cars and trucks that roll off assembly lines every year. Last year, China exported 1.15 million passenger cars and commercial vehicles, an increase of 11.3% from a year earlier, according to the General Administration of Customs. This export volume represents about 4% of the country’s total automobile output. China is – by far – the world’s largest car market, producing about 27.8 million vehicles last year, down by 4.2% from 2017, the South China Morning Post reports.