Deepen China-EU Cooperation and Share New Development Opportunities
On November 18th, the 2021 China-Europe Entrepreneur Summit Qingdao Forum hosted by the Qingdao Municipal Government and the Federation of Chinese and Foreign Entrepreneurs was held.
The forum was conducted in a combination of online and offline, with overseas branch venues such as London, France, Paris, Melbourne, Australia, Madrid, Spain, and domestic cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Jinan, etc., with nearly 10,000 Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs. , Experts and scholars gather in the cloud to explore new opportunities for win-win cooperation.
Build a mutually beneficial and win-win platform between China and Europe
This forum established an open, inclusive, multilateral and mutually beneficial international exchange platform, which attracted a lot of attention.
"China has entered the WTO 20 years ago and has become the most open country among developing countries in the world." Long Yongtu, co-chairman of the Federation of Chinese and Foreign Entrepreneurs, said in a video speech that the China-Europe Entrepreneur Summit moved from Europe to Qingdao, reflecting the focus of the global economy. The general trend of transfer is that the hot land of global trade and investment is shifting from Europe to Asia, especially China. It should seize the opportunities of multilateral mechanisms such as RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) and continue to promote higher levels of open cooperation.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown believes that the world is currently facing huge challenges and requires countries to strengthen cooperation and jointly research and propose global solutions to problems such as climate change and financial instability.
"The Sino-European economic partnership is very important. We should pay attention to the huge challenges on a global scale and the significance of international cooperation in this context. Only by working together can we overcome the difficulties together." Pierre Raffarin said.
Lin Songtian, president of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, believes that China has become the world's largest investment destination country and the second largest consumer country, and the largest trading partner of the EU, ASEAN and more than 130 countries.
"There is no fundamental conflict of interest between China and the EU, only a solid foundation of interest. The mutually beneficial cooperation between China and the EU requires each other, complements each other's advantages, and has promising prospects."
“Last year, China became the largest trading partner of the EU. In the first 10 months of this year, China-EU trade increased by 20.4% year-on-year.” Liu Xiaoming, the former Chinese ambassador to the UK, said that China and the EU will deepen economic and trade practical cooperation and jointly safeguard free trade and multilateral trading systems. The realization of their respective economic and social development provides strong support and will also add positive energy to the recovery of the world economy after the epidemic and the stability of the global industrial chain supply chain.
As the venue for the forum, Qingdao has always maintained close exchanges and cooperation with Europe.
Qingdao has established international friendship cities and friendly cooperative relations with 27 European cities, and European enterprises have accumulated 1,550 investment projects in Qinghai.
Since the beginning of this year, the growth rate of Qingdao's trade with Europe has exceeded 30%.
The mayor of Qingdao Zhao Haozhi said that Qingdao is concentrating on developing the real economy, accelerating digital transformation, unswervingly expanding opening up, and striving to build a new platform for international cooperation under the “Belt and Road” initiative. He sincerely hopes to cooperate with European enterprises in advanced manufacturing and modern services. Deepen pragmatic cooperation in trade, green and low-carbon fields, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.
Imagine the future of low-carbon cooperation
Facing the new changes in the global economy, in which areas will Chinese and European companies cooperate in the future?
On the forum, experts and entrepreneurs shared their views.
Among them, green and low-carbon cooperation has become a hot topic.
“The AIIB will increase its efforts in climate financing, and it is expected that by 2025, climate change financing will account for 50% of the total approved financing.” Jin Liqun, President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said that the AIIB’s investment strategy is to provide low-income member countries with Resilient infrastructure and lower-carbon energy solutions help member states achieve domestic and international climate goals.
Liu Guoping, Chairman of the Greater China Region of ORIX Group of Japan, said that ORIX realized the importance of a low-carbon green economy very early, developed, invested and operated many low-carbon green projects, and issued a low-carbon economy and low-carbon financial social responsibility for 4 consecutive years. According to the report, China will also vigorously develop green finance in the future to promote sustainable economic development.
As a global company rooted in Europe, Airbus has continuously strengthened its multi-field and multi-dimensional cooperation with the Chinese aviation industry in recent years.
This time, Philip Gaota, vice president and chief financial officer of Airbus China, made a special trip to Qingdao. He hoped that more Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs would pay attention to the “carbon neutral” practice and sustainable development of the aviation industry.
Huang Xiaojun, Senior Vice President of Veolia China, said that companies are the main force in carbon reduction. There are many experiences between Chinese and European companies that can learn from each other. China is the world's largest solar wind power market, and Europe has more advanced technologies.
"In the field of hydrogen energy, Europe has many mature technologies, and we are willing to bring mature solutions and business models to China." He called for the establishment of a China-Europe low-carbon green experimental window in Qingdao, the formation of a model and the promotion of more low-carbon Promotion of exchanges and cooperation to China.
Yu Dexiang, chairman of Qingdao Terad Electric Co., Ltd., said that the biggest problem facing the promotion of green energy such as wind power and hydropower is unstable supply, and how to achieve stable energy storage is very important.
China's largest special call charging network built by Terad uses electric vehicles to aggregate into a zero-cost energy storage network, linking to a huge energy storage network, which not only ensures the safety of the power system, but also guarantees energy storage.
Digital transformation and upgrading of Pathfinder
The comprehensive promotion of digital and intelligent transformation is the key to shaping the core competitiveness of enterprises in the future.
At the forum, the guests discussed the current path of digital transformation of enterprises and expressed the vision and expectations of the business community for digital transformation.
"Digital transformation is not an option, but a necessary option for enterprises." Chen Yonglan, President of the Asia-Pacific China Region of France's Orizé Fund Group, stated the importance of digital transformation for enterprises in one sentence.
He believes that digital transformation should become an important part of a company's core strategy.
As an investment team that specializes in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, France Orizé Fund Group has established a dedicated digital planning team. When conducting project inspections with the investment team, it carefully evaluates the current status of a company's digital transformation and gives relevant opinions.
Liu Chaochen, senior partner of Xinzhongli Capital, shared the new business formats and new models brought about by digital transformation.
He believes that digitization can not only improve the dimensions of the enterprise itself, but also help master the laws of industrial chain operation, and then build the entire industrial ecosystem.
Empowering other industries with financial digital transformation is also a hot topic discussed by the guests of this forum.
Zhao Lei, general manager of Lion Capital, believes that the financial industry naturally has digital advantages, and digital transformation is also an important proposition in the current financial industry.
The Qingdao enterprises participating in the meeting also shared their experience and practices in digital transformation.
According to Chai Yongsen, Chairman of Qingdao Double Star Group, in order to continue to promote the digital transformation of the enterprise, Double Star has reorganized along the path of digital equipment, digital workshop, digital factory, digital products, and digital marketing. A digital ecosystem of the entire industrial chain of "Industry 4.0" + "R&D 4.0" + "Service 4.0" has realized the transformation from "selling tires" to "selling services".
Facing the difficulties of digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises, Weiwei Zhang, CEO of Qingdao Haier Kaos Industrial Internet Platform, believes that most Chinese enterprises are still in the advanced stage from informatization to digitalization. Starting with a scenario and providing a suitable scenario-based solution is Kaos's ability to continue to polish.
Qingdao's unique advantages in the development of the digital economy have attracted many Sino-European cooperation projects to land here.
During the forum, the launch ceremony of the China-EU Industrial Innovation Cooperation Fund RMB II Fund and Foreign Currency Fund was held.
The China-Europe Fund not only introduces European companies with core technologies and cutting-edge scientific research results in Qingdao through capital investment, and industrializes them to achieve "bringing in"; it also helps Qingdao high-quality enterprises to go abroad and achieve "going out" through capital operation. Financial cooperation empowers industrial upgrading and promotes mutual benefit and win-win results between China and Europe.