The 4th EU-China CEO and Former Senior Officials’ Dialogue Is Held Online

On 23 November, 2021, the 4th EU-China CEO and Former Senior Officials’ Dialogue was co-hosted by China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) and BusinessEurope. Participants from both sides conducted frank discussions on topics including “China, the EU and the Global Economy – transitioning to a Post-Covid world?” and “EU-China bilateral trade and investment relations”, with special focus on post-pandemic economic recovery and multilateral trading system rebooting, jointly addressing climate change, facilitating green transition, achieving supply chain resilience, improving business environment, China’s 14th Five-Year Plan, improving investment environment in China and the EU, and ways to deepen collaborations between companies from both sides. Bi Jingquan, Executive Vice Chairman of CCIEE, Zhang Xiaoqiang, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of CCIEE, Jiang Zengwei, Vice Chairman of CCIEE, Wang Yiming, Vice Chairman of CCIEE, Pierre Gattaz, President of BusinessEurope, Jean-Claude Trichet, Former President of European Central Bank, Pascal Lamy, Former Director General of World Trade Organization, Jörg Wuttke, President of EU Chamber of Commerce in China attended the Dialogue, and more than 30 business leaders, former government senior officials, experts and scholars participated in the Dialogue. Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director General of the European Commission Directorate-General for Climate Action, exchanged views with the participants via video.

The Chinese participants held that the China-EU relation is one of the most important bilateral relations in the world, and is of strategic significance to the peace and development of China, Europe and the world. Establishing a new development paradigm in China needs broad involvement of capital, technology, and talent from the Europe, while the extensive market potential and innovation vigor in China will in turn transform into an important market and destination for investment for the Europe. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the China-EU two-way trade showed an increase against the global trend, and China has become the EU’s largest trade partner in goods, proving that the win-win collaboration between China and the EU is an irresistible trend. Currently, both sides should deepen cooperation in areas of common interests, enhance mutual trust, and raise bilateral cooperation to a higher level. To ensure the industry chain and supply chain stable, the upper- and lower-stream should work together, jointly maintain the multilateral trading system, and safeguard the core position of WTO in the global trade governance.

Chinese participants pointed out that China’s 14th Five-Year Plan has formed a new development paradigm in which domestic market is the mainstay while domestic and foreign markets reinforce each other. China has been endeavouring to develop an open economy of higher level. There would be huge room for China and the EU to collaborate in digital economy, advanced manufacturing, green energy and green finance, for which both sides should further release those potential, create better business environment for entrepreneurs, and actively push forward the ratification of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI). Both sides should continue to foster multilateralism, support and strengthen the rules-based multilateral trading system, jointly carry forward the WTO reform, address global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, safeguard a fair, open and stable environment for investment, and carry out mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation.

The EU participants acknowledged that in terms of bilateral trade, China has surpassed the US to become the largest trade partner in goods of the EU, and China has become the major growth market for many European companies. Currently, although the economic tie between the two sides is getting stronger, political relations are facing challenges and people-to-people exchange is declining, which has made this year’s Dialogue even more important than ever before. As the EU is gradually recovering its economy, it will protect the multilateral trading system and promote WTO reform together with China. It is expected that China would make full play of its role as the second largest economy in the world, and contribute more to climate change with the EU. In the hope that the CAI could be ratified as soon as the situation permits, companies from both sides should seize the opportunities and collaborate in areas of digital technologies, clean energy, energy storage, green transition, etc. Dialogues and meetings are supposed to be held more frequently to enhance mutual understanding and dissolve barriers.

The EU-China CEO and Former Senior Officials’ Dialogue is a nongovernmental platform initiated by CCIEE and BusinessEurope in 2017, with the aim to facilitate communication and collaboration between companies from China and the EU. The Dialogue has played a positive role in promoting sound and steady development of China-EU economic and trade relations and the exchanges and cooperation between companies.