Seminar: China-U.S. Trade Tensions also Affect European Companies. What about Yours? – 16 May 2019 – 08h30 – 11h30 – Ghent
Mar-28-2019 By : fcccadmin
The Flanders China Chamber of Commerce and KBC Bank are organizing a briefing focused on “China-U.S. Trade tensions also affect European companies. What about yours?”.
This event will take place on Thursday 16 May 2019 from 8:30-11:30 at KBC Bank, Kortrijksesteenweg 1100, 9051 Ghent. The global economy is slowing down due to persistent uncertainties and trade conflicts. Amidst the risk of the U.S.-China trade war escalating towards Europe, European trade policy aims to balance short-term interests. Europe acknowledges the unavoidable further rise of China and explores new ways of structural European-Chinese cooperation. But many question whether Europe’s approach is appropriate. Exploring various features of current Chinese and European business allows us to assess the question of whether Europe is naïve or developing a structurally smart strategy to deal with the Chinese dragon.
During this briefing, two bankers from KBC Bank will discuss the following topics.
• China Economic Update Post-Trade War – Mr. P.C. Leung, General Manager, KBC Bank N.V. Shanghai Branch
• Is Fortress Europe ready for the Chinese Dragon? – Mr. Jan Van Hove, KBC Group’s Chief Economist, and General Manager of KBC’s international economic research activities
P.C. Leung
Jan Van Hove
Programme
08:30: Registration and networking 09:00: Introduction by Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce
09:10: Presentation by P.C. Leung, General Manager, KBC Bank N.V. Shanghai Branch and J. Van Hove, KBC Group’s Chief Economist, and General Manager of KBC’s international economic research activities.
10:00: Q & A discussion
Practical Information
Location: KBC Bank, Kortrijksesteenweg 1100, 9051 Ghent
Price: for members: €66,55 (incl.21% VAT)
Price: for non-members: €90,75 (incl. 21% VAT)
If you are interested in participating in this event, please subscribe before 11 May 2019 via this link.
Contact: FCCC info@flanders-china.be
About the speakers
• P.C. Leung, General Manager, KBC Bank N.V. Shanghai Branch. After 10 years with the Bank of China Group, P.C. joined KBC Bank Hong Kong Branch at 1991 as Financial Controller. He started his China banking career in KBC Shanghai Branch in 1997. He also worked in KBC Bank Taiwan Branch for 3 years thereafter. He is now the General Manager of KBC Bank Shanghai Branch. P.C. earned an MBA degree and a Master of Information System degree. He is a Chartered Professional Accountant of Canada.
• Jan Van Hove, KBC Group’s Chief Economist, and General Manager of KBC’s international economic research activities. In addition, he is a professor in international economics at the University of Leuven in Belgium. As Chairman of the economic commission of the Federation of Belgian Enterprises, he has intensive contacts with Belgian firms. He is specialized in international trade and international macro-economics. His work has been published in various international journals. Jan Van Hove is often consulted by companies, policy makers and international institutions on European and global economic topics. He is also an Honorary Chairman of the International Network for Economic Research and has been a Visiting Professor at various European universities.
FCCC Meeting with Liaoning Delegation – 20 March – Ghent
Mar-27-2019 By : fcccadmin
On 20 March 2019, the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, represented by Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, received an official delegation from Liaoning Province. Bekaert, a founding member of the FCCC, has a significant and successful investment in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province. The delegation introduced the favorable investment environment of the Province. Located in the south of the northeastern part of China, Liaoning is the only province in the northeast region that is both coastal and bordering.
The province’s land area is 148,000 square kilometers and counts a total population of 42.71 million. Liaoning is one of the critical old industrial bases in China and is one of the largest regions in the country’s industrial sector. The province’s main sectors are metallurgy, petrochemicals, steel operations, logistics, automotive, heavy manufacturing, aerospace and electronics.
Companies interested in obtaining more information can send an e-mail to gwenn.sonck@flanders-china.be
Italy becomes first Western European nation to sign up for China’s Belt and Road plan
Mar-26-2019 By : fcccadmin
Chinese President Xi Jinping with Italian President Sergio Mattarella
Through agreements signed in Rome, Italy became the first of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the first founding EU Member to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China stands ready to work with Italy on the BRI by strengthening its alignment with the country’s development strategies to bring bilateral ties to a new level, President Xi Jinping wrote in an article in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera ahead of his trip. He called on the two sides to tap more potential for partnership in port logistics, shipping, energy, telecommunications and medicine. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Chinese President Xi Jinping witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the BRI. Among the 29 other agreements signed were two port management deals between China Communications Construction and the ports of Trieste and Genoa, Italy’s biggest seaport. Trieste is strategically important for China because it offers a link from the Mediterranean to landlocked countries such as Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Serbia, all of which are markets Beijing hopes to reach through its BRI. Other deals signed cover areas including satellites, e-commerce, agriculture, beef and pork imports, media, culture, banking, natural gas and steel. The two countries also agreed to boost cooperation on innovation and science, increase bilateral trade and set up a Finance Ministers’ dialogue mechanism.
Bilateral trade topped USD50 billion last year while two-way cumulative investment reached more than USD20 billion. China’s “Belt and Road Initiative is a train that Italy cannot afford to miss”, said Italian Finance Minister Giovanni Tria. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte also thinks Italy should jump on board, saying the multibillion-dollar Chinese infrastructure plan is “an opportunity for our country”. “The New Silk Road must be a two-way street to share not only goods but also talent, ideas, knowledge, forward-looking solutions to common problems and projects for the future,” Italian President Sergio Mattarella said. By March 6, more than 20 European countries had already signed BRI cooperation documents with China, including Russia, Portugal, Austria, Greece, and 16 Central and Eastern European countries.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Italy, France and Monaco from March 21 tp 26. Xi’s visit coincided with the 55th anniversary of the establishment of China-France diplomatic relations. It was Xi’s first overseas trip this year, including the first visit by a Chinese President to Monaco.
Following his short visit to Monaco, President Xi arrived in Nice and had dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron in Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the French Riviera before the official welcome ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and a meeting and state dinner at the Elysée presidential palace. President Xi also met in Paris with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. During Xi’s visit, Airbus signed a USD35 billion contract for 290 A320 planes and 10 of the larger A350s in a blow to rival Boeing, whose 737 Max-8 is still grounded following two crashes in five months. The Airbus contract was one of 15 signed, including a €1 billion contract for EDF to build an offshore wind farm in China. France’s Fives and the China National Building Materials Group signed a €1 billion deal to cooperate on energy savings in developing countries. CMA-CGM and the China State Shipbulding Corp. signed a €1.2 billion deal to build 10 container ships.
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has also just concluded a visit to EU Headquarters in Brussels for talks with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and to participate in the Ninth China- EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue. Wang underlined three points. Firstly, cooperative partnership is the nature of China-EU relations. There is no essential conflict of interest between China and the EU. Secondly, the goal of China-EU cooperation is to achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcome, where Europe will benefit from the new round of Chinese reform and opening-up. Thirdly, respect of each other’s core interest is essential for the trust between China and the EU. Minister Wang Yi also met the Foreign Ministers of the 28 EU Member States during an informal working lunch.
China to become the world’s largest 5G market
By : fcccadmin
China is set to become the world’s largest 5G market, with 460 million users of the next-generation super-fast network by 2025. China plays a pioneering role in constructing the network and experimenting with cutting-edge applications such as remote surgeries, according to a report by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), which represents the interests of more than 750 mobile operators worldwide. The number of users in China is forecast to be higher than that of Europe (205 million) and the United States (187 million) combined. Mats Granryd, Director General of GSMA, said: “After spending billions over the last decade deploying 4G networks to all corners of the country, Chinese mobile operators are now set to invest a further USD58 billion over the next two years to prepare for and begin 5G rollouts, laying the groundwork for China to become one of the world’s leading 5G markets.” Backed by 5G, China’s mobile ecosystem is expected to add CNY6 trillion in value to the national economy in 2023, up from CNY5.2 trillion last year.
China’s big three mobile operators – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – are conducting 5G trial operations in a number of cities and plan to fully commercialize the technology in 2020. This month, with technological support from Huawei and China Mobile, a patient with Parkinson’s disease underwent China’s first 5G-based remote surgery. A doctor in Sanya, Hainan province, remotely manipulated surgical instruments to implant a deep brain stimulator known as a ‘brain pacemaker’ into a patient 2,500 kilometers away in Beijing. Meanwhile, Shanghai University of Engineering and Technology (SUET) has become China’s first university to have full 5G coverage on its campus. In April, Songjiang University Town – an education hub located in Shanghai’s Songjiang district where the SUET and a few other universities are located – will have 5G coverage. Later it will be extended to the Songjiang G60 Science and Innovation Corridor, transforming it into the country’s first industrialized demonstration base.
Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled she is loath to cave in to U.S. pressure to bar Huawei Technologies, saying she will not single out individual vendors as Germany toughens its security requirements for mobile networks. “There are two things I don’t believe in,” Merkel said at the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin. “First, to discuss these very sensitive security questions publicly, and second, to exclude a company simply because it’s from a certain country.’’ The United States has warned it could scale back the sharing of sensitive information with Berlin if it does not exclude hardware made by Huawei from its 5G infrastructure, arguing that Chinese equipment could help Beijing spy on Western companies and governments. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. General Curtis Scaparrotti, warned Germany that NATO forces would cut communications if Berlin were to work with Huawei.
Huawei Technologies was the top corporate filer of international patent applications in 2018, leading an Asia-based innovation surge accounting for over half of the applications submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last year. “Asia is now the majority filer of international patent applications via WIPO, which is an important milestone for that economically dynamic region and underscores the historical geographical shift of innovative activity from West to East,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. WIPO statistics showed that 50.5% of all Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications filed in 2018 came from Asia, with Europe and North America accounting for about a quarter each. U.S.-based applicants filed 56,142 PCT applications, followed by applicants from China, 53,345, and Japan, 49,702. Huawei, with a record number of 5,405 published PCT applications, was the top corporate filer in 2018, which is “an all-time record by anyone,” Gurry said. Huawei was followed by Mitsubishi Electric (2,812), Intel (2,499), Qualcomm (2,404) and ZTE (2,080), the Shanghai Daily reports.
Meanwhile, Oppo strengthened its position as the second-largest player in the domestic smartphone market, and is pushing hard to go global. At the end of February, Oppo unveiled its first 5G smartphone and announced that four foreign telecom carriers – Swisscom, Australia’s Telstra and Optus, and SingTel of Singapore – are to be among the first to sell the 5G model in the second quarter of this year. The 5G handset will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 chipset and X50 modem. Oppo’s smartphones are now available in more than 40 countries and regions, including nine European markets. In the fourth quarter of 2018, Oppo outcompeted Samsung to become the largest smartphone vendor in Thailand with a market share of 22.2%, growing about 70% year-on-year, according to Canalys. In 2018, Oppo shipped 113 million smartphones worldwide, gaining a global market share of more than 8%, according to IDC. Oppo has over 40,000 employees globally, with 10 manufacturing facilities and six research institutes across the world.
U.S.-China trade negotiations to resume in Beijing and Washington
By : fcccadmin
Trade negotiations between China and the U.S. are to resume on March 28 and 29 in Beijing, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer leading the U.S. delegation to the 8th round of high-level consultations. In early April, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is scheduled to travel to Washington for follow-up sessions. However, it is far from certain that a breakthrough is imminent. U.S. President Donald Trump has said that even if a deal is reached, tariffs would be kept in place “for a substantial period of time” to force China to implement its commitments, a measure China will certainly reject. China, historically, had had “a lot of problems living by certain deals, and we have to make sure”, Trump said.
Wei Zongyou, a specialist in China-U.S. relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, said the upcoming back-to-back negotiations were indicative of the two sides’ “willingness to narrow the distance between their positions”. “But the U.S. has constantly emphasized the verification mechanism and use of punitive tariffs as a counterweight,” he said. “Even if they do reach an agreement there will still be contradictions and differences on trade issues that will require them to continue interactions, negotiations and compromise.” Lighthizer told a U.S. Senate Finance Committee that he hoped the two countries were “in the final weeks of having an agreement” – the two sides had exchanged drafts of a 110 to 120-page document, he said – but stressed there were still major unresolved issues that could derail it.
Despite Trump’s demands, Allan von Mehren, China Economist at Danske Bank in Copenhagen, said that with an election looming, the U.S. President was equally keen to strike an agreement. “I doubt Trump will say no to a deal, as this could trigger turmoil in financial markets,” he said. “He also really wants this deal as it will be a big gift to key voters in swing states. He has his eyes set on the 2020 election now and the campaigning will starting very soon.”
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