The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce and the Flanders Cleantech Association organized a meeting with a delegation led by a group of Chinese mayors of second and third-tier cities in China. The Chinese mayors were from the following cities: Lanzhou (Gansu province), Guiyang (Guizhou province), Zhuhai (Guangdong province), Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The visit was organized in the framework of an exchange programme of The Climate Group, which is an organization based in the UK with offices worldwide, including Beijing and focusing on climate change and low carbon area. The aim of their visit was to facilitate the dialogue, trade and investment between Chinese cities and Europe on cleantech and environmental technologies.

The participants were welcomed Mrs Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director of the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce. This welcome was followed by an introduction by Mr Dirk Fransaer, Managing Director of VITO. Mrs An Vandeputte, Project Manager of OVAM/Public Waste Agency of Flanders gave an interesting presentation on the policy instruments and results in waste management in Flanders. Mr Daniel Dirickx, Director of the Hooge Maey explained the meaning of sustainable landfilling. Mr Bert Lemmens, Project Manager Renewable Chemicals of VITO showed how to obtain renewable chemicals from algae. To end the presentations, Mr Karl Vrancken, Research Coordinator of VITO gave his view on Enhanced Landfill Mining as a new concept for sustainable materials management.

After the presentations the delegation visited the site of the Hooge Maey. After the site visit the delegation and the Belgian companies had a lunch with a presentation by Mr Luc Bas, European Programme Director of The Climate Group. During the lunch, the Belgian companies were able to present themselves and their activities to the delegation.

This meeting was organized with the support of Flanders Investment & Trade. Pictures of this meeting will be online soon.

The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce organized a successful New Year’s reception on 16 February 2012 at KBC Bank in Brussels, attended by 300 participants.

Speeches were made by:

Mr Bert de Graeve, Chairman of the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce (FCCC)

His Excellency Mr Liao Liqiang, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Belgium

Mr Didier Reynders, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and European Affairs

Pictures of the reception will be online soon.

Lou Jiwei, Chairman of China Investment Corp (CIC), China’s USD410 billion sovereign wealth fund, said investing in European government debt was “difficult” for long-term investors. He said any fresh injection of funds into Europe would be in industrial and other real assets, not government bonds. German Chancellor Angela Merkel had asked CIC and other long-term investors to buy European government debt when she visited Beijing earlier this month. “For European bonds like the government bonds of Italy and Spain, only central banks with certain responsibilities can invest,” Lou Jiwei told the annual meeting of China Economists 50 Forum. “We may be poor, but we aren’t stupid,” Xia Bin told reporters at the forum. “We must follow commercial principles in making such investments. That means we want returns.” Premier Wen Jiabao didn’t make any explicit commitments during Merkel’s visit, although he said China was willing to help Europe cope with its debt crisis. CIC has received a capital injection after it invested almost all of its cash in 2010, said CIC Chairman Lou Jiwei, without disclosing the amount of the infusion.

DBS Group, Southeast Asia’s biggest bank, plans to boost its workforce in China by about 25% this year after profit doubled last year and as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Singapore. The bank aims to add about 400 employees in China, mostly in corporate banking, taking the total to 2,000, Melvin Teo, Chief Executive of DBS China, said in Shanghai. The company increased its staff by 42% last year. Revenue in China rose 65% last year to about CNY1.9 billion, while net income doubled to exceed CNY500 million. China now contributes about 29% of the group’s revenue and the percentage may increase to 33% “in the next few years”, Chief Executive Piyush Gupta said. Gupta has focused on building DBS’s wealth-management business to reach rich Asians, particularly in China, India and Indonesia. He has hired new management, introduced products including yuan-denominated investments and pledged to spend HKD1.54 billion to expand over the next five years. Gupta also set a target of 12% return on equity next year, up from 10.8% in the third quarter of last year.

China cut the amount of cash that banks must set aside as reserves for the second time in three months to spur lending as Europe’s debt crisis and a cooling property market threaten economic growth. Reserve requirements would fall by 50 basis points. The change in the ratio is expected to add about CNY410 billion to the banking system. The reserve requirement ratio (RRR) will be 20.5% for large banks and 17% for smaller ones. China raised reserve requirements six times and interest rates three times last year to tame inflation. “Growth remains the top concern for policymakers,” Zhu Haibin, Hong Kong-based Economist for JPMorgan Chase, said before the release. “Monetary policy will be biased toward easing this year.” The central bank said it would improve the use of differentiated reserve ratios, where individual lenders hold different percentages of deposits as reserves according to their capital adequacy levels and lending growth. “It’s not a big surprise. Although they [Chinese leaders] stress policy stability, an RRR cut is necessary. Trade and monetary data in January pointed to some downward pressure on the economy,” Huachuang Securities Economist Hua Zhongwei said.