Meeting with Deputy DG Claire Bury (DG CONNECT)
2016-01-26 | Beijing
SM opened the meeting by giving a comprehensive view of China’s recent economic and political developments. She touched upon topics including BCS, PP, CAI, Foreign Investment Catalogue, Rule of Law, OBOR, etc.
MC: 5 G Joint Declaration brought businesses opportunities; Central funding open to foreign vendors (though business still need to work with Chinese partners); Globalization of ICT standards body (CCSA under MIIT opened to Nokia and Ericsson; 4G and 5G expert groups in the process of opening up as well), opening to foreign players;
DG Connect commented 5G standards and updated the cooperation on it during the upcoming Feb 2016 Mobile World in Barcelona. On the topic of standard body open to foreign industry, they asked to be updated and might need more information in the future.
Action: MX to flag this up to Xiaowen.
BF: Security related legislations: China is promoting the idea of “Internet Boarder” limiting data exchange. The idea of “secure and controllable” required companies to localize their data.
SM noted that this is a typical technical barrier to trade.
DG Connect updated the expert group for cybersecurity and asked the Chamber to send nomination asap.
BF also highlighted two issues faced by foreign players which are 1. China using competition rules for industry policy purposes and 2. Subsidies to Chinese companies (in the case of Tsinghua Unigroup).
MC: Suggest one or two tangible deliverables for the dialogue with China each time.
MX: Checked if suggestions on expert from Chinese sides (for European businesses to suggest Chinese experts for Chinese side) are welcome and was given a positive answer.