Ms Helena Koenig Visits CCIEE

On November 23^rd, 2010, Chen Yongjie, Deputy Secretary General of CCIEE, met with Ms Helena Koenig, Head of Unit for Relations with the Far East of the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission. Also at the meeting were Ms Adeline Hinderer, Head of Unit for Trade Relations with China of the Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission, Ms Maria Linder, Trade & Investment Officer of the Trade and Investment Section of the Delegation of the EU, Xu Chaoyou, Deputy Director General of the Department of External Affairs, Jiang Chunli, Deputy Director General of the Information Department, Dr. Niu Tiehang, Head of the Globalization magazine and Dr. Zhang Yongjun, Researcher of the Research Department of CCIEE.  

Chen Yongjie welcomed Ms Helena Koenig and her colleagues and briefly introduced CCIEE. He said that China attaches great importance on China-EU trade relations and is willing to strengthen communication with relevant institutions in Europe. The substantial increase in China’s export over the last 30 years is mainly due to multinational companies’ processing trade in China. Chinese enterprises have only gained very little profit from this process and therefore, it would be unfair for some western countries to blame China’s trade surplus as a cause of the global trade imbalance. At present, many Chinese enterprises are trying to expand their businesses overseas but have encountered some non-market type of barriers. China’s market is opening up and we hope other countries can give the same treatments to China’s enterprises as we do to foreign companies.

Ms Koenig thanked Chen Yongjie for the meeting and introduced the main responsibilities of her Unit, which is responsible for strategic planning and inter-governmental liaison. The purpose of this trip to China is to visit relevant Chinese governmental organizations, so as to prepare for the forthcoming China-EU High-Level Economic Dialogue which will be held this December. Ms Koenig praised CCIEE for the remarkable achievements it has made and its outstanding research team. In particular, she noted the Global Governance and Sustainable Economic Development Conference which was jointly hosted by CCIEE and the Bertelsmann Stiftung on 10^th and 11^th of November, is of great success and has received great response from the international community. The Directorate-General for Trade of the European Commission is willing to conduct exchanges and cooperation with CCIEE to jointly promote further development of the China-EU economic and trade relations.

The two sides had a preliminary discussion on the ways of exchanges, and agreed that staff of both organizations will initiate communication to undertake exchanges and cooperation programs.