UK CEOs explore business opportunities as May visits China

BEIJING, Feb. 4 — “Although I am maybe visiting in winter, I
have had the warmest of welcomes,” said visiting British Prime Minister
Theresa May Wednesday afternoon in Beijing, after talks with Chinese
Premier Li Keqiang.

May is on her first official visit to China, which started Wednesday
morning. She said that she thought the tour had fallen at an “auspicious”
time for the two sides. Taking a glimpse of May’s visit, it is hard to
ignore the 50-strong British entrepreneur delegation accompanying her. The
delegation, grouping CEOs covering areas such as finance, education, trade,
auto-making and insurance, reflected the British side’s will to seek closer
trade and economic ties with China. “We discussed how our economies have
complementary strength. Trade between our two countries is already at
record levels, worth 59 billion British pounds (about 83.5 billion U.S.
dollars). UK exports to China have grown by 60 percent since 2010. And UK
has been one of the largest European recipients of China’s foreign direct
investments,” said May when meeting the media together with Premier Li.
“We are determined to deepen our trade relationship even further,” she
said. May witnessed new progress in the development of UK-China ties. A
series of events came on the heels of her arrival in Beijing Wednesday.

Apart from her talks with Li, the two leaders also witnessed the signing of
twelve cooperative documents, covering such fields as entrepreneurs,
customs, education, innovation and finance. A China-UK CEO Council was also
freshly inaugurated Wednesday afternoon. Consisting of over 30 renowned
companies, universities or organizations from the two sides, it will exert
new vigor for the business people to enhance ties. “With world-renowned
open market and financial resources, the UK is an important and appealing
investment destination of Chinese companies,” said Tu Guangshao, chairman
of the Board of China Investment Corporation, at the inaugural meeting of
the council. “The increasingly deepening development of the golden era of
China-UK relations has prompted the two economies to complement each
other’s advantages,” Tu said, adding that enterprises from both countries
were beneficiaries. According to Tu, the company has invested in various
fields in the UK, including infrastructure, the open market and commercial
logistics, with aggregate investment exceeding 15 billion U.S. dollars. “My
presence at this event demonstrates the great importance the two countries
have attached to nuclear cooperation,” said He Yu, Chairman of the Board of
China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN).

Nuclear technology sharing and cooperation has gone well, thanks to the two
governments’ great attention and support, he stressed. The landmark Hinkley
Point C nuclear project, with one-third of investment from CGN, has been
described by local media as “Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a
generation.” Britain is China’s second largest trading partner within the
European Union (EU) and China is Britain’s second largest non-EU trading
partner.Trade volume between the two countries hit 79 billion U.S. dollars
in 2017, up nearly 6.2 percent from the previous year, with Britain’s
exports to China increasing by 19.4 percent. More than 500 Chinese
enterprises have set up their offices in Britain, with a total of 21.8
billion dollars invested in projects ranging from traditional areas like
trade, finance and telecommunications to such emerging areas as new energy,
high-end manufacturing, infrastructure and research centers. “In previous
exchanges between China and the UK or the EU, governmental dialogue
mechanisms take a large proportion, and there is a lack of dialogue
mechanism among enterprises or trade associations,” said Cui Hongjian, a
scholar with the China Institute of International Studies. “Through the
expansion of entrepreneurs’ communication, the two countries can let the
market and enterprises play a more active role under the guidance of the
government, so as to promote win-win cooperation and promote bilateral
relations,” said Cui.

Beijing is May’s second stop in China. She toured the Chinese city of Wuhan
earlier Wednesday, and announced details of a new approach covering
pre-school through to postgraduate education. According to the official
website of the UK Embassy in China, the approach includes a new commitment
to extend the UK-China Maths Teacher Exchange primary school program for a
further two years to 2020. This will enable an additional 140 primary
teachers in England to benefit from further training in China. A press
release on the website said that “education deals totalling more than 550
million British pounds (about 778.4 million U.S. dollars) will be announced
as part of the visit, creating over 800 jobs in the UK.” Chinese students
already constitute the largest single source of overseas students in the
UK, with 155,000 students. May will wrap up the visit Friday. She will also
tour China’s economic hub Shanghai. The three-day visit is also the first
by a British prime minister to China, since the two countries agreed to
embrace a golden era in bilateral relations in October 2015. – XINHUA