2016 in Review Go back »
2017-01-05 | All chapters
Lobbying the Chinese Government
We had more than twenty Minister and Vice-Ministerial level meetings with Chinese Central Authorities in 2016. These included meetings with the Chairman of Legal Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress Li Shishi, the Chief Economist of the State Administration of Taxation Ren Rongfa, and the President of the Development Research Center of the State Council Li Wei. We also had around 200 central and local governments working-level meetings across China.
We provided comments on more than 90 draft pieces of legislation and successfully lobbied for and achieved the inclusion of four key recommendations from the Inter-Chamber SME Working Group in the draft Revision of SME Promotion Act.
Lobbying the European Commission
We had more than forty high-level meetings with EU authorities in Brussels, Beijing and Shanghai. These included with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, Vice-President of the European Commission Jyrki Katainen, Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem and EU Ambassador Hans-Dietmar Schweisgut. In October, Chamber President Joerg Wuttke met with China’s Vice Premier Ma Kai and President of the European Commission Juncker in Brussels.
Regular participation of EU officials in Chamber Working Group meetings and quarterly events with the Head of the Commission’s Investment and Trade section reflects stronger interaction with the EU delegation. We also provided direct input into negotiations for the proposed EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.
Publications
In February, we published a major Chamber study Overcapacity in China, which has been one of the most widely quoted chamber publications to date. We published our annual Business Confidence Survey in June and Position Paper 2016/2017 in September, which both received wide media attention as well. Local position papers for Southwest China, Tianjin and Shanghai were also published in 2016.
Events and Media
We held over 350 business-focused seminars and conferences nationally. We hosted the 11th EU-China Business Summit with Premier Li Keqiang and EU President Jean-Claude Juncker in July. We also hosted many social events such as galas, sports tournaments and inter-chamber mixers for networking.
We attained a 30% increase in media news mentions of the Chamber.
Desks and Project
We set up two more industry desks–Fashion & Leather and Food for Special Medical Purposes (FSMP)– to cater for sectoral needs for lobbying.
The EU-China Aviation Partnership Project (APP) – funded by the EU and implemented by the Chamber – was launched in February, providing cooperation opportunities for the European aviation sector.