The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, CleantechRouteChina and Flanders Investment & Trade are organizing a webinar “As an SME with ambitions in China, what do I need to know about the geopolitical and macroeconomic situation?”. This webinar will take place on May 18, 2021 at 9:00 am.

Mrs Francine Hadjisotiriou, General Manager of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) – (South China) will provide insights into the position and role of China on the geopolitical scene and the country’s macroeconomic situation  as well as on the impact on foreign companies active on the Chinese market. She will also detail the likely effects of the 14^th Five-Year Plan and the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) for foreign companies operating, and investing, in China.

Mrs. Eva Verstraelen, Trade Commissioner, FIT Guangzhou will summarize the coronavirus pandemic as it now stands in China and what impact the pandemic has had on business.

The session will be moderated by Mrs. Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director FCCC.

Programme:

9:00: Welcome by Gwenn Sonck, Executive Director FCCC

9:05: Introduction of CleantechRouteChina by Mr Geert Regelbrugge, CleantechRouteChina & Smart Hub Manager International Cooperation, Province of Flemish Brabant

9:10: Presentation on China geopolitics, macroeconomics, the 14^th Five-Year Plan and the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), by Francine Hadjisotiriou, General Manager of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) (South China)

10:00: Current situation of the coronavirus pandemic – impact on business life, by Eva Verstraelen, Trade Commissioner, FIT Guangzhou.

10:10: Q&A

10h30: End

Practical Information:

Date and time: May 18, 2021, 9:00 am – 10:30 am

Location: Online

Price for members: Free

Price for non-members: Free

Target group: All Flemish companies may subscribe. The webinars are accessible and suitable for companies in every phase of their internationalization process.

• Your company has only just started exploring the opportunities of the Chinese market, or
• You already covered part of the way

Practical:

• During sessions of 1.5 hours a keynote speaker gives his or her view on the topic of the day.
• Supplemented by the insights and experiences of additional speakers or a panel, you will receive a

comprehensive view in a short time.

• During each webinar there is an opportunity to ask questions.
• CleantechRouteChina has the support of the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, the EU SME Center and the China IPR SME Helpdesk

Programme: overview dates and topics

See which topics are interesting for your company and choose one or more of the six webinars. You need to subscribe for each webinar separately also if you want to join the whole series.

More information is available in Dutch at: https://www.cleantechroutechina.be/evenementen

SUBSCRIBE HERE

In the coming years China will focus strongly on the economic development of the Western part of the country. The megacities Chongqing and Chengdu will play a prominent role, it is the strategy of the central authorities to have them cooperate and to later merge into a city cluster on the scale of the other three big economic pillars: Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei in the North,  the Yangtze River Delta in the East and the Greater Bay Area in the South.

Flanders Investment & Trade, POM Antwerpen and the Province of Flemish-Brabant take you to this exciting region and introduce potential business partners.

What? FIT gladly guides Flemish exporters to the opportunities arising from this development and is therefore organizing an online mission to Chongqing and Chengdu from 7 till 11 June 2021. The virtual trip will be an introduction to the region and a possible “physical” trip in 2022 for which you can already establish the first contacts.

For whom? The trip is open to all sectors but spearhead sectors are traditional equipment manufacturing, electronics and IT, energy and automotive. In the future there will be an increased focus on IoT, new materials, robotics and biotech. In cooperation with POM Antwerpen and the Province of Flemish-Brabant, which have an active cooperation with Chongqing and Chengdu respectively, FIT is also organizing a programme in the Life Sciences and Cleantech sectors.

Where? Chengdu and Chongqing, China.

When? 7-11 June 2021

Latest subscription date? 7 May 2021

Price? €150 per company

Organization? Flanders Investment & Trade in cooperation with POM Antwerpen and the Province of Flemish-Brabant

More information is available in Dutch HERE. 

The Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has started to accept proof of vaccination from people seeking to enter China who have been inoculated in the United States with Covid-19 shots made by U.S. drugmakers. Travelers who have had the Pfizer-BioNTech shot or the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines can submit proof as part of the documentation needed for entry into China, the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement. The new policy suggests that travel restrictions will be gradually eased. China has not yet approved vaccines developed by non-Chinese drug makers for use domestically, although BioNTech’s vaccine is in the pipeline for authorization by July. BioNTech has agreed to cooperate with Shanghai Fosun Pharma to deliver 100 million doses to China in 2021, pending approval. Fosun has sole marketing rights for the vaccine in China, while BioNTech partners with Pfizer in other parts of world. Other Chinese embassies that accept non-Chinese vaccination records include the Embassy in Iraq, which accepts vaccinations with the AstraZeneca vaccine. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month China was willing to hold talks with other countries over mutual recognition of the Chinese QR health code, which would contain a digital certificate of Covid-19 vaccination.

A scientist who took part in the international team studying the origins of Covid-19 has expressed surprise and dissatisfaction at remarks made by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus over further researching the hypothesis that the virus leaked from a laboratory in China. The WHO Director General has disregarded the hard-won research outcome and consensus among the international science community in his remarks, the scientist said. An international team of scientists visited Wuhan between January 14 and February 10 to conduct a Covid-19 origin-tracing study, before releasing a 120-page report on March 30 saying the virus most probably jumped from an animal, potentially a bat or pangolin, to an unknown intermediate animal host and then to humans. The report added that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus spread to humans through a laboratory leak. He also rebutted Tedros’ remarks that members of the international team encountered difficulties in accessing raw data.

The Chinese-made CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine has proven to be very effective in preventing infections, hospitalizations, admissions to intensive care units, and deaths, Chilean Minister of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Andres Couve said when he received the eighth shipment of the vaccine. According to the Chilean government CoronaVac has an efficacy of 67% in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, up to 85% effectiveness in preventing hospitalization, 89% in preventing admission to an intensive care unit, and it is 80% effective in preventing death caused by the virus. A vaccine’s efficacy is the protection it provides under real-life conditions and the results of the study were based on CoronaVac’s effectiveness 14 days after the second dose. The study included about 10.5 million people aged 16 or older. 

Meanwhile, Chinese Covid-19 vaccine producers such as Sinovac and CanSinoBIO are considering technology transfers to other countries to help address the global vaccine inequity issue, company executives said at the 2021 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA). “China plans to produce over 3 billion Covid-19 vaccines this year. The capacity can reach around 5 billion doses this year,” Zheng Zhongwei, Director of the Development Center for Medical Science and Technology of the National Health Commission (NHC), said. Globally, about 800 million doses had been administered, about 80% of which were in middle- and upper-income areas, said Qiao Jianrong, Coordinator of the health systems and health security team at the WHO in Beijing. Yin Weidong, CEO of Sinovac Biotech, said that the company will try to realize technology transfer to 10 countries as soon as possible. Sinovac has produced 260 million doses, of which 60% were provided to other countries. Sinovac’s daily production exceeds 6 million doses. Yu Xuefeng, Chairman and CEO of another Chinese vaccine producer CanSinoBio, said the company is considering technology transfer to some qualified countries like Mexico and Pakistan.

Three Chinese pharmaceutical companies have in the past three weeks signed agreements with Russia’s sovereign wealth fund RDIF to annually produce a combined 260 million doses of the Russian Sputnik-V Covid-19 vaccine. On March 29, RDIF and Shenzhen Yuanxing Gene-tech Co, a biotechnology company, agreed to cooperate to produce more than 60 million doses of the Sputnik-V vaccine. In an April 1 deal,  RDIF and TopRidge Pharma, a subsidiary of Tibet Rhodiola Pharmaceutical Holding, agreed to manufacture more than 100 million doses, and in an April 19 deal Hualan Biological Bacterin agreed to produce 100 million doses. The combined amount of vaccines involved in these deals will be sufficient to vaccinate 130 million people, given Sputnik-V’s dual-shot procedure.

This overview is based on reporting by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily and Global Times.

China plans to launch the National Consumption Promotion Month, the annual campaign jointly organized by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and other ministry-level departments on May 1. Simultaneously, Shanghai will launch its May 5 shopping festival while promotions are set to be rolled out in multiple regions including Beijing and Chongqing. China’s third annual national online shopping festival will also kick off, featuring premium domestic products, famous items from Silk Road e-commerce partner countries, as well as online services in the catering, tourism, culture and sports sectors.

The Ministry said the campaign aims to “further vitalize market entities, boost consumer market sentiment and fully meet people’s consumption demand for a better life”. Previously the campaign used to be held in the second half of the year. It will also include a wider range of events and activities in different places across the country, to promote consumption of various products and services online as well as offline. Some programs will last throughout the year. Officials and experts said that while China’s consumption market is recovering quickly from the impact of Covid-19, the campaign will provide new impetus  to the dual-circulation development paradigm, in which the domestic market is the mainstay and the domestic and foreign markets reinforce each other. “The promotional campaign has its eyes on the expansion of domestic demand and is expected to further enhance the vitality of market players, unleash the potential of consumption, accelerate market recovery, and improve consumption quality,” said MOFCOM Spokesman Gao Feng.

China’s retail sales of consumer goods reached CNY10.52 trillion during the first quarter, up 33.9% year-on-year. That also was an increase of 8.5% compared with the same period in 2019, and a rise of 1.86% compared with the fourth quarter of last year.

But consumption is not well balanced between different industries, business forms, products and regions, and people’s demand has not been fully met. The campaign will feature various offline activities and events, such as auto shows, brand exhibitions and shopping carnivals. In addition, online sales and promotions will be held for various products and services across a wide range of sectors, including catering, tourism, sports and education, with new business forms such as live streaming e-commerce and customized production being widely adopted to meet consumers’ diversified demands. From May 7 to 10, the first China International Consumer Products Expo will be held in Haikou, Hainan province. Bai Ming, Deputy Director of International Market Research at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that expanded consumption will be better utilized as a strategic basis for Chinese economic growth. According to Li Xuesong, Deputy Director of the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, consumption did not recover as well investment and exports.

China should accelerate Covid-19 vaccinations to speed up the recovery of consumption, especially consumption in the services sector, said Li. He also suggested to inject more vitality into the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors, lower interest rates to better support the real economy and thus improve employment, and enhance income distribution among industries and regions to increase people’s incomes to further unleash consumption potential.

China also plans to promote the digital economy as an important engine for economic growth and further deepen its integration with the real economy, said Huang Kunming, Director of the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party at the opening ceremony of the fourth Digital China Summit in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province. He added that efforts should be made to strengthen innovation in science and technology to provide strategic support for China’s further opening-up. He also called for the development of smart cities and digital villages to provide more convenient and efficient digital services. A report reviewing the country’s digital development in 2020 was released at the summit by the Cyberspace Administration of China, highlighting China’s achievements in sectors such as 5G networks, big data, communications and artificial intelligence (AI). Currently, the overall level of China’s digital economy ranks second in the world, the report said. Steady progress has been made in the integration of the internet with manufacturing, and China’s centrally administered State-owned enterprises are accelerating the development of digital industry, and have set up more than 60 industrial internet platforms, said Hao Peng, Director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

This overview is based on reporting by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily and Global Times.

China’s market of electric vehicles (EVs) has been white-hot this year as more foreign brands have stepped up their activities in China. The country accounts for 55% of global NEV sales. That has led a growing number of automakers to start laying out plans to address the trend and consolidate their debut at the Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition. From Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini to Audi, foreign luxury car makers have brought their latest electric models and plans to the Shanghai auto show as they eye a bigger share of the world’s largest auto market. Britain’s Bentley launched a hybrid car, New Bentayga Hybrid at the show last week. “We definitely have a very high confidence in the China market, Bentley like every other vehicle brand has to follow customer demand. The clear future is electric worldwide and particularly China is leading this development,” Bernd Pichler, Managing Director of Bentley Motors Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, told the Global Times. “The new Bentayga incorporates a lot of feedback we received from Chinese customers. I’m very confident that we will see high numbers in the Chinese market because demand is very high for the vehicles,” he said.

Bentley’s announcement comes amid an accelerating shift by the global auto industry away from gas and diesel to battery power, where China has become a recognized frontrunner. In November 2020, China unveiled a development plan for its new-energy vehicle industry  for 2021-2035 that aims to turn the country into an automotive powerhouse, including raising the proportion of new NEVs in the sales of new vehicles to 20% by 2025. By 2035, most vehicles sold will be electric ones, while those used in public transportation will be exclusively electrified, according to the plan. “New energy is not a choice. I think it is a must,” Leon Li, Director of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Greater China region told the Global Times. All of Rolls-Royce products will be all fully electric in the next 10 years. “From automatic driving, artificial intelligence, to connectivity of cars, I think it is a future trend for each brand,” Li said. 

Lamborghini is set to unveil its electric plan in May and seeks to deepen collaboration with local Chinese tech companies in automotive connectivity, Asia Pacific Head of Lamborghini Francesco Scardaoni, told the Global Times. “I would say China is the most advanced market in terms of connected services and AI technology, meaning that if we want to be a champion in this segment we have to localize our suppliers for connectivity and AI technology,” he said. In the more mainstream luxury market, Audi is teaming up with Chinese carmaker FAW to produce luxury electric vehicles with the establishment of a joint-venture factory in Changchun, Jilin province. Six new electric vehicle models will be introduced by 2025, said Werner Eichhorn, President of Audi China.

The entry of high-end vehicles comes amid a backdrop of increasing competition in China’s electric car market already crowded with a number of local start-ups, like Nio, XPeng, Li Auto and new tech players, including Huawei Technologies and Baidu, all vying for a slice of the domestic market. “The new-energy market has been in the making for several years, but today it is seen by everyone. Today it is just erupting like a volcano. I figure that start-up companies like Nio are very happy to see a competitive market,” Qin Lihong, Director and President of Nio told the Global Times. “We need to see that the intensity of competition will increase, which will push us to work harder. Although the best high-end gasoline-powered auto manufacturers are big in scale, we are at least five years ahead of them in the electric business. These five years is a valuable time window. I expect our advantage to be maintained for at least two or three years,” Qin said.

Huawei has also unveiled the Arcfox Alpha S, a HarmonyOS-powered EV co-developed with BAIC at the show. It also featured the wireless charging technology developed by Chinese wireless EV charging start-up Invispower Co, founded in 2015 with an R&D team from Tsinghua University. Compared with the traditional charging mode that requires manual plug-in of a charging gun, the wireless charging can function at any time and is expected to bring a safer and more convenient user experience. The industry still needs to address problems including chip shortages, insufficient charging facilities and the sudden collapse of smaller companies, independent car analyst Song Jin told the Global Times.