China-EU Summit enhances innovation partnership

By Zhang Min
China.org.cn, June 29, 2015

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrives in Brussels for the 17th China-EU leaders' meeting, Belgium, June 28, 2015. [Xinhua photo]



Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Brussel yesterday to attend the 17th China-EU Summit. He will also visit the EU headquarters before paying an official visit to France. This is an important event for the EU-China relationship. It will further develop China and the EU’s relationship into a comprehensive strategic partnership by finalizing a series of agreements between the EU and China on trade, investment cooperation, energy and innovation.

READ: 'Belt and Road' initiatives complement EU investment plan

This is the first time that the summit has been held since both new EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration assumed their respective offices. The EU is now at a crossroads for the revival of the European economy. Most EU member states are shaking off the recession, but the EU economy is still growing slowly and needs new momentum. The EU is also facing a variety of internal and external challenges. The Greek debt crisis is still underway and is in urgent need of a solution, while the overall process of European economic integration has been negatively impacted by the Greek debt crisis and the Ukraine crisis.

Meanwhile, China has entered a new stage of slower economic growth, turning its focus to reforming the country’s economic structure and addressing social and environmental problems. Both EU and Chinese leaders will therefore take this opportunity to exchange views on the most important issues facing the development of both of their economies.

In order to stimulate economic growth, the new EU Commission leadership has devised a new development strategy that defines EU investment priorities. The new strategy focuses on infrastructure, cultivating an energy “Union,” creating a single digital market, and fostering education, innovation, research and development.

Meanwhile, China’s "Belt and Road" initiatives have reached the implementation stage. The Silk Road fund has been created and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank initiative has received a positive response from most EU member countries.

The new EU investment plan and China’s Belt and Road initiatives both focus on investment in infrastructure, internet connectivity and smart energy grid construction and will therefore create more opportunities in technology-related investment fields for both China and the EU.

The first priority of the 17th EU Summit is to smoothly advance negotiations on the Bilateral Investment Treaty. The BIT negotiations have achieved some positive result so far, but there are still some differing viewpoints on market access and investment rules and regulations.

China-EU bilateral investment is relatively small compared to the volume of EU-China bilateral trade. The EU is China's largest trading partner, its biggest import and export market and its primary source of technology transfer. According to official Chinese statistics, the bilateral trade volume reached US$615.1 billion in 2014, 9.9 percent higher than the previous year. By the end of 2014, the total volume of foreign direct investment in China by the 28 EU countries was US$96 billion. Meanwhile, China’s FDI in EU countries was US$49 billion.

The second goal of the EU Summit is to address differing attitudes about the new climate change agreement which may be signed in Paris in December at the UN Climate Change Conference. China and the EU are both actively responding to global climate change, and both sides want to promote climate policy dialogue and coordinate different targets for greenhouse emissions reduction, energy efficiency and renewable energy usage. China is looking for new institutional arrangements between developed and developing countries based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. The country is also seeking a system that will allow low-carbon technologies to diffuse from industries in advanced countries to less developed countries and also wants to make new financial arrangements for mitigating global climate change after 2020.

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