2018 EU-China Industry Workshop on New Type of Urbanisation
2018-09-11 | Beijing
On 11th September, around 120 policy makers, national authorities, industries, city governments, academics, civil societies and other stakeholders from China and Europe attended the EU-China Industry Workshop on New Types of Urbanisation 2018. The workshop was organised by the European Chamber and China Academy of Urban Planning and Design (CAUPD) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD). Funded by the European Commission under HORIZON 2020, the workshop was part of the EU-China Innovation Platform on Sustainable Urbanisation (URBAN-EU-CHINA).
Mr Philippe Vialatte, Minister Counsellor Head of Science, Technology and Environment Section Delegation of the European Union (EU) to China, made the opening remarks by reviewing the development of EU-China Partnership on Urbanisation since 2012 and pointed out the significance of government-city-industry-research partnership for better solutions to sustainable urban development.
Mr Wang Zheng, Chief Officer of the Department of Development Planning, National Development and Reform Commission, also echoed the message of Mr Vialatte, on behalf of Deputy Director General Zhou Nan. Mr Wang also shared updates on the development of China’s new type of urbanisation along with the EU-China city-to-city cooperation.
Mr Li Xun, Deputy Director General and Vice President of CAUPD, shared his perspective on cooperation and innovation in urbanisation between China and Europe. As Mr Li stated, urbanisation is the inevitable trend of social development with multiple features in the middle and later stages. Policy makers and urban planners are supposed to take various factors into consideration before taking any concrete actions, for instance, compact mixed land use mode to prevent extensive construction sites in industrial parks and independent parks and private car from leading infrastructure over construction.
Chamber Vice President Massimo Bagnasco highlighted the role of industries and enterprises in the process of sustainable urbanisation through several case studies in both China and Europe. Mr Bagnasco further emphasized that under the umbrella of the EU-China Partnership on Urbanisation, both China and the EU will benefit tremendously from the development of a new type of urbanisation. The Chamber therefore hope that European companies will have many more opportunities to engage in this initiative with Chinese stakeholders and business partners.
Mr Jiao Xiaoping, Director General and Head of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) Centre, Ministry of Finance, exchanged his opinions on how PPP model can facilitate the development of sustainable urbanisation via four sections: urbanisation is the new driver of economic and social development; PPP is an innovate engine for urbanisation; current landscape of China’s PPP market; challenges and opportunities for PPP reform.
Moderated by Ms Liu Yue, Director of the Division of International Cooperation, China Centre for Urban Planning, thematic dialogue I addressed the topic on innovative and effective approaches to EU-China cooperation on sustainable urbanisation through presentations and Q&A session with experts from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, JPI Urban Europe, Euro Cities, ICLEI and Tungtai International Holding Group.
Moderated by Mr Li Xun, thematic dialogue II addressed the topic of key technologies and standards for urban ecosystem management through presentations and Q&A session with experts from the Ministry of Natural Resources, MOHURD, Tsinghua University, Danfoss, TOMRA, and Chamber Construction Working Group.
This meeting was concluded by Ms Annemie Wyckmans, Coordinator of URBAN-EU-CHINA and Head of the Smart Sustainable Cities Group of Norwegian University of Science and Technology with the hope of developing a robust, evidence-driven bottom-up approach to complement the existing top-down EU-China strategic approach to sustainable urbanisation.