On 28 March Gilbert attended the meeting in Swissotel as the EUCCC representative. Amcham and other chambers were also represented.
The meeting was organized by the Beijing Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (BAEFI). The current chairman is NOKIA’s President, David Ho. The chairman of NOVARTIS, Dai Hosen, also attended.

Vice Mayor Zhao Fengtong was to deliver a speech on “The Development of Beijing’s High-tech Industry” but finally just appeared for a couple of minutes to say he had to run away for (another) “urgent” meeting.
Mr. Zhao’s portfolio: Education. Science & Technology, Intellectual Property, Sports, BDA (the economic zone in Daxing).

BAEFI and BIPB instead organized an Q&A session and representatives from the relevant Beijing Commissions answered the questions. Under the circumstances they did their best really.
The overall quality of the answers was not great (what’s new?!). The issue of hukou and lack of suitable staff was raised by several companies (e.g. ORACLE), complaining it seriously affects their staffing requirements. The Beijing side could have explained the central government was exactly these days considering changes to the hukou system and the categories of “rural – urban” residents (it was the newspapers!). A bit difficult to attract High-tech Industry if one cannot find suitable staff: large part of the good candidates cannot get their hukou transferred and return to their original cities.

BAEFI regularly organizes similar meetings. The previous one was with vice mayor Ji Lin.

On 29 March Gilbert was invited to speak in the Seminar, opened by the British Ambassador, William Ehrman. The chairman of Britcham, Michael Fosh also took part. Several UK engineering companies presented their activities, one being ARUP, well known for its participation in the Olympic projects (Birds Nest and WaterCube). An agreement was signed by Ben Papé, chairman of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (UK).

Gilbert gave a short presentation on the EUCCC, the importance of EU-China relations and the Public Procurement Working Group while Michael Fosh introduced the British Chamber.