On Dec. 30, 2020, China and the EU completed the long-awaited EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) negotiations after 35 rounds of talks in the past 7 years.

Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, was happy to see it was completed, and the two sides find something together against strong interference from the US. “It's a good way in level playing field, more accountability in SOEs, subsidy scrutiny, and more engagement.”

Joerg Wuttke (Photo provided to Newsgd.com)

He recalled that the last time Europe and China signed up agreement was when China joined the World Trade Organization. Wuttke believes, CAI is crucial for the Chinese investors in Europe, and it’s a signal that Europe remains open and does not close up. Vice versa, in many ways, it’s even more important for Europeans in China to get this deal approved. However, Wuttke is worrying about CAI being jeopardized while sanctions make things a bit grim, he hopes it can be rejuvenated.

Despite this context, Wuttke comments, “the economy is luckily still going very strong,” adding “The Chinese government went the extra mile to safeguard our investment and trading with China. They really rolled out the red carpet after the sanctions came out.”

“My focus on China’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) falls on qualitative growth, meaning let industry, regulators and customers decide how fast the economy is going to go better, which means a stronger emphasis on the environment,” he said.

As for Guangdong’s green growth and improving energy efficiency, Wuttke, also Vice President and Chief Representative of BASF China, raised two steps.

Taking the BASF smart Zhanjiang Verbund project as the example, he stresses, “First and foremost, it has to do with renewable energy from wind, hydro, solar, and nuclear in order to service an industry, which can be highly energy-demanding.” Then, try to establish a carbon neutral development, however, which means an extreme extension of building up new wind farms and putting more solar panels into use.

He added, the focus in China should not only be on more renewables, but also the grid, as there are too many losses in transmission between power stations and consumers.

Author | Hannah

Video | Keane, Chen Weifeng

Editor | Keane, Jerry