[Hybrid] China’s Transition through COVID and its Economic Recovery Go back »
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Time2023-02-20 | 16:00 - 17:30
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Venue:Zoom/European Chamber Office Beijing, Room C405
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Address:
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Fee:Members: 200 |
Non Members: 400
After having upheld stringent COVID control measures for almost three years, the Chinese Government abruptly abandoned its ‘dynamic clearing’ strategy in early December 2022, and announced its dedication to getting things back to normal in order to realise a strong economic recovery. As a result, the number of infected cases nationwide soared at the end of last year, though the full death toll was not revealed.
Now that China has taken a quicker road to reopening and started to build business back to pre-pandemic levels, some public health experts have estimated that a second wave of infection is likely to take place in the coming months.
Is China prepared for the arrival of a new wave of infections in the near future? How could COVID modelling help the government to calculate more precise estimates on infection rates and speed in order to better respond? What are the economic prospects under the current policies?
To address the above questions and more, the European Chamber is delighted to invite a COVID modeller, an economist and a global health expert to share their analysis and forecasts on the evolving situation with infections, recommendations for policymakers and China’s economic recovery under its reopening policies.
Agenda
16:00–16:05 Remarks from the President
- Jörg Wuttke, president, European Chamber
16:05–16:25 China’s Transition Through COVID
- Rodney Jones, Economist and Principal, Wigram Capital
16:25–16:45 China’s COVID Outlook
- Dr Bernhard Schwartländer, former head of the cabinet of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization; global health envoy of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
16:45–17:10 China’s Economic Recovery Under its Reopening Policies
- HE Wei, China Economist, Gavekal Dragonomics
17:10–17:30 Discussion and Q&A
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Speakers
Mr. Jörg Wuttke

Mr. Jörg Wuttke
Jörg Wuttke is Chief Representative of BASF China, based in Beijing. Wuttke is President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China – an office he already held from 2007 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2017. Wuttke is a member of the Advisory Board of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin. He contributes regularly to the Swiss financial blog https://themarket.ch/. Wuttke has lived in Beijing for more than three decades.
Mr. Rodney Jones

Mr. Rodney Jones
Rodney Jones is the Principal of Wigram Capital Advisors, one of the earliest Asian-focused macro advisory firms, which he established in Hong Kong in 2001. Wigram provides economic analysis and advice on developments in Asia to global investors and selected government policy makers.
Rodney has been working as an economist and analyst in Asia for more than 30 years, having lived in Asia for 25 of those years. Rodney was resident in Beijing from 2010 to 2019. Prior to establishing Wigram, Rodney was a Managing Director and Partner with Soros Fund Management, heading up the research office in Hong Kong from 1994-2000, having started working as an economist in Singapore in 1990.
In recent years, Wigram has established a strong data science focus. Rodney and the team provided modelling on the path of the COVID-19 pandemic to the New Zealand government from early 2020. He is a graduate of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In 2021 Rodney was awarded a MNZM for his contribution to economics and New Zealand’s COVID-19 strategy.
Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer

Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer
Dr. Bernhard Schwartländer, Global Health Envoy, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also the former Chef de Cabinet of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the WHO, is a medical doctor and holds a doctorate in medical epidemiology. He received his education and professional training in Germany and the US at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He use to be the WHO Representative in China. Before joining WHO in China, he served as Director for Evidence, Policy, and Innovation at UNAIDS headquarters in Geneva and as the United Nations Country Coordinator on AIDS in Beijing, China. Prior to these assignments, Dr. Schwartländer held a number of senior international positions including the Director for Performance Evaluation and Policy at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria; Director of the World Health Organization’s HIV Department; and as the Director of Evaluation and Strategic Information at UNAIDS.
In 2000, Dr. Schwartländer undertook a special assignment at the World Bank to perform economic analyses on the cost and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the responses to it. Prior to joining the United Nations, Dr. Schwartländer was the Director of the national AIDS program in Germany and the Director of the Division of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Robert Koch-Institute in Berlin, the central biomedical and infectious disease research and reference laboratory of the federal Ministry of Health, Germany.
Dr. Schwartländer has published widely in scientific journals and books and taught applied epidemiology in Berlin. He brings extensive experience in development policies as well as infectious disease epidemiology and programming at global and country levels.
Mr. Wei He

Mr. Wei He
Wei tracks Chinese monetary and fiscal policy for Gavekal Dragonomics. He previously worked at Financial Times Confidential, where he wrote on a wide range of macroeconomic and financial topics, as well as Market News International. A Beijinger, he has a BA in finance from Peking University, and an MA in politics from New York University.