Inauguration Ceremony: Shanghai Overseas Promotion Center for Service Trade & Matchmaking Event – 14 June – 10:30 – Brussels
May-28-2019 By : fcccadmin
The inauguration ceremony of the Shanghai Overseas Promotion Center for Service Trade (Brussels) and Matchmaking Event will take place on 14 June from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Thon Hotels, Rue de la Loi, 1040 Brussels.
The Center aims to facilitate business between Shanghai and European companies and institutions.
This event is a unique opportunity for companies active in the services industry (logistics, banking, insurance, tourism, e-commerce, entertainment, and animation industry and others) to meet with the leading government officials from Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Commerce and Shanghai business leaders. If your company is interested to promote and develop its brand in Shanghai and other locations in China, you can meet the right contacts during this event.
This event is free of charge.
Agenda
10:00-10:30 Sign-in
10:30-10:35 Introduction by Zhao Xiaolei, Director, International Economy & Culture Exchange Center, Eastday
10:35-10:50 Speeches by
Li Hong, Deputy Director-General, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce
Zhou Zhaoming, Economic and Commercial Counselor, Chinese Embassy in Belgium
Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director, Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce/ EU-China Business Association
10:50-10:55 Inauguration of Shanghai Overseas Promotion Center for Service Trade
10:55-11:00 Group photo
11:05-11:10 Introduction of the Shanghai Overseas Promotion Center for Service Trade by Gao Binxiang, Vice President, Eastday
11:20-11:30 Book release on overseas development of Shanghai service trade by Mao Jun, Secretary General, Shanghai Global Promotion Alliance for Service Trade
11:30-12:00 Sino-Belgian Service Trade Enterprises Matchmaking Event
12:00-12:30 Buffet lunch & photo exhibition on Shanghai enterprises
Hosted by:
Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce
Eastday
Organized by:
Shanghai Overseas Promotion Center for Service Trade
EU-China Business Association/Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce
Shanghai Global Promotion Alliance for Service Trade
Supported by:
Economic and Commercial Counselor’s Office of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Belgium
Brussels Bureau for Promoting Foreign Investment and Trade
During this ceremony, there will also be a matchmaking event with Chinese entrepreneurs. The full composition of the delegation, which includes business leaders and their proposals for cooperation can be found via this link
If you are interested to participate in this event, please register before 07/06 via this link at the FCCC website
Due to a high attendance, priority will be given to members of the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce. If you are interested in joining our chamber, we kindly invite you to register via: www.flanders-china.be/en/about/join_fccc
Practical information
Location: Thon Hotels, Rue de la Loi, 1040 Brussels.
Date: 14 June, 10:30 – 12:30
Price: Free
Contact: FCCC: info@flanders-china.be
Trump’s Huawei ban overshadows tariff fight
By : fcccadmin
President Donald Trump’s banning of U.S. companies buying Huawei equipment or selling components to Huawei now overshadows the tariff fight between the two countries. Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon suggested that killing Huawei is more important than a trade deal with China. Only days after imposing the ban, Trump eased the pressure somewhat, as the U.S. Commerce Department announced that in the next 90 days it will allow Huawei to purchase U.S.-made goods in order to maintain the existing networks of its clients and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets.This would lessen the unintended impact on the U.S. customers of Huawei and prevent potential network blackouts.
The Chinese government reacted furiously to the ban. China’s Foreign Ministry voiced support for companies to use “legal weapons” to safeguard their legitimate rights just hours after Google restricted Huawei’s access to Android services and Google apps. Huawei will only be able to access some of Google’s software and services that have open source licensing. This is less of a problem in China, where Google apps such as YouTube and Gmail are blocked anyway, but could hamper the sales of Huawei smartphones outside China, where customers expect to be able to use Google apps and upgrade the Android mobile operating system. Huawei will continue to provide security updates and after-sales services to all existing Huawei and Honor smartphone and tablet products, covering those that have been sold and that are still in stock globally. Honor is a leading smartphone brand under Huawei.
Last year, Huawei bought USD11 billion worth of products and services from U.S. companies. Some U.S. semiconductor companies, like Qorvo, get about 10% of their revenues from Huawei. In an interview, Huawei Founder Ren Zhengfei thanked the U.S. companies that have helped Huawei grow in the international tech arena. “Our friendship with them was formed years or decades ago,” Ren said, adding that if U.S. companies can get government approvals, Huawei would still want to buy large quantities of components from them and maintain normal trade cooperation. Huawei is aiming to be the biggest smartphone brand in the world by 2020. It sold about 30 million units in the Chinese market in the fourth quarter of 2018, or about half its global total, according to IDC.
Top U.S. corporations including Qualcomm and Intel have frozen supply of critical software and components to Huawei. Some telecom carriers such as Vodafone, EE and Softbank are postponing the presale of Huawei smartphones. But German chipmaker and semiconductor manufacturer Infineon and Japan’s Panasonic declared that they did not stop their supplies to Huawei. The conflict could slow down the deployment of 5G in countries which do not use Huawei equipment, and to be forced to connect to non-Huawei 5G infrastructure could prove to be very expensive. “The U.S. side is misleading the public and stirring up an ideological battle, which is illegitimate,” Spokesperson Lu Kamg of China’s Foreign Ministry said, noting that over the past 40 years, differences in ideology have not stopped China and the U.S. from working together on trade, industry and technology.
President Trump might also extend the ban to other Chinese companies in a move Chinese analysts dubbed a Cold War in the tech industry. Companies that could be targeted include Zhejiang Dahua Technology, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Megvii, Meiya Pico and iFlytek. Chinese drone manufacturer DJI said safety is at the core of everything the company does, and the security of its technology has been independently verified by the United States government and leading U.S. businesses. The company’s statement came after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Chinese-made drones may be sending sensitive flight data back to their manufacturers in China, which could be accessed by the government. Nearly 80% of the drones in the U.S. and Canada are made by Shenzhen-based DJI, the world’s largest commercial drone maker, according to a study from Skylogic Research.
Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co, the world’s largest manufacturer of video surveillance products and solutions, said it follows all applicable laws and regulations in the markets it operates in, adding that it has already retained a human rights expert and former U.S. Ambassador Pierre-Richard Prosper to advise the company regarding human rights compliance.” Xu Lei, Vice President of Hikvision, said the company has prepared backup plans to cope with the U.S. security concerns. Hikvision’s U.S. business only accounts for 6% of its total revenue.
China is considering to retaliate by declaring the use of U.S. equipment a danger to China’s national security. China’s tech industry will no doubt also enhance its self-reliance in core technologies, reducing reliance on U.S. technology and undermining the future market in China. According to the draft Cybersecurity Review Measures published last week by China’s Cyberspace Administration, operators of the country’s critical information infrastructure, including major telecommunications network operators and financial service providers, would be required to evaluate the national security risk when purchasing foreign products and services. National security concerns have long been used as the justification for Washington’s increased scrutiny over Huawei and other Chinese tech companies. The Chinese government is seeking public feedback to the draft regulation till June 24. Analysts warn that the world is heading down a path of two distinct technology-based ecosystems where China pushes out U.S. companies and the U.S. pushes out Chinese companies.
Beijing rejected Washington’s claim that China broke a trade deal the two sides had agreed upon, saying efforts by the United States to confuse the public and shift blame are in vain. President Donald Trump said: “We actually had a deal, and they broke it.” China’s Foreign Ministry’s Lu Kang countered: “I do not know what this deal means. Maybe the U.S. has a deal it hopes for, but it is by no means agreed to by China.” The fundamental reason for the failure to reach an agreement after 11 rounds of bilateral trade talks is that the U.S. is trying to exert maximum pressure on China to realize unreasonable demands, he added. Commenting on the possible continuation of the trade talks, the United States should show sincerity and correct their wrong practices if the country wants to continue Sino-U.S. trade talks, China’s Commerce Ministry said. “Only on the basis of equal treatment and mutual respect will talks be likely to move on,” Spokesperson Gao Feng said.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited JL Mag Rare-Earth Co in Jiangxi province, as some analysts expect China to ban rare earth exports to the U.S. China accounts for 90% of global rare earths production and the minerals are among the few items excluded from the planned U.S. tariffs on almost all remaining Chinese goods exported to the U.S. China accounted for seven out of every 10 tons of rare earth elements mined worldwide last year and was the biggest exporter to the U.S. The minerals are vital to the production of components in electric vehicles, the audio and camera systems of Apple iPhones and the U.S. military’s guided missiles. The prices of heavy rare earths have risen 30% this year. A key time to watch will be June, when China is expected to set its mining quota for rare earths for the second half of the year. The first half quota was 60,000 tons, the same as last year.
China launches new campaign for self-sufficiency
By : fcccadmin
As China and the U.S. are de facto embroiled in a new cold war in the high-tech field, China has launched a new campaign for self-sufficiency and innovation. “The Chinese government needs to increase support to companies, whether state-owned or private, to improve their talent cultivation and R&D capability, so that they can handle the potential threats from the trade war,” the Global Times commented. China is redoubling its efforts to achieve major technological breakthroughs. China must prepare for difficult times as the international situation is increasingly complex, President Xi Jinping said during a three-day inspection in Jiangxi province. He urged people to learn the lessons of the hardships of the past as he toured the departure site of the legendary Long March.
Huawei is already working on its own mobile operating system – “HongMeng OS” – and app store – App Gallery – to replace the Android system and may launch it later this year. On the stock market, shares of Chinese companies focusing on operating systems such as Wondertek, Bird and Nsfocus were all rising. In the field of microchips, Huawei plans to accelerate the transition form using foreign chips, such as those supplied by Qualcomm, to those developed by its own semiconductor subsidiary HiSilicon. For now, China is still for a large part dependent on foreign suppliers. In 2018, the country imported USD312.1 billion in chipsets, up about 20.8% year-on-year, while recording exports of USD84.6 billion. Under the “Made in China 2025” industrial strategy, chip-making is one of the 10 key sectors in which Beijing hopes its domestic players will catch up with global leaders and become self-sufficient by 2025. China’s imports of semiconductor chips rose 30% over four years to USD260 billion in 2017.
Last week, China unveiled the testing prototype of a new magnetic levitation train (Maglev), developed with its own technology and capable of reaching speeds of 600 km/h. High-speed trains in China now run at a speed of up to 350 km per hour. CRRC Qingdao Sifang launched a key state-level research and development program with the participation of more than 30 companies, universities and research institutes in July 2016 to develop high-speed maglev trains with homegrown intellectual property. A high-speed maglev running at 600 km/h could narrow the gap between high-speed rail and air travel. A Japanese maglev train reached 603 km/h on an experimental track in Yamanashi prefecture in 2015, and Japan plans to put its 500 km/h maglev trains into operation by 2027.
Shanghai is currently the only Chinese city operating a commercial high-speed maglev line. The Shanghai Maglev Train using German technology was put in use in 2003 on a 30 km stretch between a subway stop in Pudong and the Pudong airport.
An earlier example of how China withstood foreign pressure is provided by the China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC). “In the past, we had to import tunnel boring machines (TBMs), and relied on foreign experts to fix the machines, and they didn’t allow us to have a look at all. So what? We started from scratch and eventually built our own TBMs. Now China-made TBMs have two-thirds of global market share and we have forced foreign competitors to lower the price of their products by 40%,” the company said. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp added: “At the beginning, we didn’t even have a chance to look at other countries’ satellites. But now, we sent Chang’e-4 to land on the far side of the moon.”
China will also increase support and subsidies for tech firms. Vice Minister for Industry and Information Technology Wang Zhijun said Washington’s recent moves to stymie Chinese firms would help those companies to cut their reliance on foreign technologies. “Recently, the U.S. has taken a series of measures to crack down on Chinese companies for political purposes. But it is in fact a good thing for Chinese firms. China’s manufacturing upgrade requires a breakthrough in key and core technologies, and we need to speed up the process,” he said. A greater emphasis on “basic research” is seen as key to China reducing its dependence on foreign technology and achieving its ambition of becoming a global technology superpower.
Meanwhile, China’s biggest chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), plans to withdraw from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) by removing its American depositary receipts (ADRs) from the bourse. As reasons for the delisting, SMIC cited the low trading volumes of its ADRs and the costs of maintaining the listing and complying with reporting requirements and related laws.
U.S.-China trade war hurting American companies in China as tariffs cut into demand
By : fcccadmin
Three-quarters of U.S. companies operating in China said the escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing was hurting their business, according to a new survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China. More than half of respondents said that higher tariffs imposed by both countries were cutting into demand for their products and 42% said they were experiencing higher manufacturing costs. Of those surveyed, 38% said they were seeing higher sales prices for their products. “The negative impact of tariffs is clear and hurting the competitiveness of American companies in China,” AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai said in a joint statement. The survey interviewed 239 member companies between May 16 and 20, with nearly 62% of the respondents coming from manufacturing-related industries.
China and the U.S. appeared close to reaching a trade agreement as recently as late April, but the Trump administration abruptly reversed course earlier this month and increased tariffs from 10% to 25% on thousands of Chinese goods. As tariffs have increased, a third of companies said they were delaying or cancelling investment decisions, according to AmCham. Of those surveyed, 35% said they were adopting an “in China, for China” strategy, localizing manufacturing and sourcing for the Chinese market, rather than exports. “Such a strategy constitutes a rational choice for many companies to insulate themselves from the effects of tariffs while maintaining their ability to pursue domestic market opportunities,” the Chambers said.
More than half of respondents said they had not experienced an increase in retaliatory measures other than tariffs by the Chinese government, but one in five said they had experienced increased inspections and slower customs clearance of their products. The tariffs have not been encouraging companies to move jobs back to the U.S., according to AmCham. Of the surveyed companies, 41% said they were considering relocating or had relocated manufacturing facilities outside China, but only 6% were considering moving back to the U.S. Southeast Asia was the top destination, followed by Mexico, the South China Morning Post reports.
President Xi calls for cooperation to develop the internet, big data and AI
By : fcccadmin
Countries should cooperate in developing the internet, big data and artificial intelligence (AI), Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a letter to the China International Big Data Industry Expo in the southwestern city of Guiyang. “The new generation of information technology, represented by the internet, big data and artificial intelligence, is booming at present and has significant and profound impacts on the economic development, social progress and people’s lives of all countries,” Xi said. Different countries need to strengthen cooperation, deepen exchanges, grasp the opportunities of digital, internet-based and intelligent development, and properly address the legal, security and governance challenges in the development of the big data industry, he said. China is willing to share opportunities of the digital economy’s development with other countries and jointly explore new growth drivers and development paths by exploring new technologies, new business forms and new models, Xi said.
The four-day international expo on big data in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, focused on the latest innovation of the technology and its applications, and was attended by 448 enterprises from 59 countries and regions, including more than 150 foreign companies. “Today, the internet, big data and artificial intelligence have integrated deeply with the real economy, while the digital economy has enjoyed rapid growth,” Miao Wei, China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, said at the opening ceremony of the expo. “Such integration has become the key driving force for high-quality development of the economy.”
By the end of 2018, the scale of China’s digital economy reached CNY31 trillion, accounting for about one-third of national GDP. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has sent a message to the big data expo, expressing his best wishes for a fruitful event. “From medicine to transportation to farming, big data presents the world with a remarkable tool to advance global progress,” Guterres said. Since 2015, the expo has been held four times in Guiyang. As China’s first big data pilot zone, Guizhou province has attracted heavyweight players, including Apple, Qualcomm, Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba and Foxconn, to establish cloud computing and big data centers as well as regional headquarters, the Shanghai Daily reports.
China is expected to generate and store 27.8% of global online data by 2025, up from 23.4% last year, according to a report by market researcher International Data Corp and data storage firm Seagate. In comparison, the U.S. share will stand at 17.5% by 2025, a drop from its 21% share in 2018, the China Daily added. It was also announced at a forum in Shanghai that a national pilot zone for next-generation artificial intelligence will be established in Shanghai. The new zone will focus on fundamental research in AI, such as brain-inspired intelligence and intelligent unmanned systems, and will aim to become a global center of AI theory, application and talent by 2023.
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