The head of a major Beijing property developer has been placed under questioning, the China Business Times and China Daily reported. Liu Xiaoguang, president of Beijing Capital Group Ltd and chairman of Hong Kong-listed subsidiary Beijing Capital Land Ltd, was taken away by staff from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on 16 June.
Rumors say that it is linked to Beijing Vice-Mayor Liu Zhihua’s sudden dismissal on June 11 for corruption and poor morals. A dispute over a valuable parcel of land next to Olympics venues is mentioned… with 3 buildings (an office block, a hotel and apartments). Originally to be developed by a foreign joint venture involving a company called AC Morgan Investment. Then “changed hands”. It is not clear at this stage if Liu Xiaoguang – one of the top businessmen in business is being accused of anything.

Not to stop there, a Hong Kong newspaper reported that one of the major officials the Beijing 2008 Project Construction Headquarters had been taken away to assist the graft investigation. Of course, locally ”no comments”.
As said earlier, I am positive. Hopefully the authorities will go to the bottom of it all and it can only improve (or restore?) the image of the city.
The local press (Xinhua!) did report that “The Communist Party of China is dealing with the corruption by killing flies as well as killing tigers”. Next are the dragons?

Recent changes… some made headlines. Vice mayor Liu Zhihua was picked up by the anti-corruption brigade because of his “decadent lifestyle”. He has some mistresses (rumor go he had quite a few), led a luxurious life well above his expected income and it seems he was involved in some dubious deals. He was in charge of some of the Olympic projects, public projects and real estate. Good move – it proves that finally nobody is above the law. Let’s hope it makes some others think twice…
He is replaced by Ji Lin, former chief of the Communist Party Youth League in the capital, to oversee Olympics construction projects.
Beijing has a total of 7 vice-mayors.
Vice mayor Zhang Mao recently left to become the vice president of the National Development and Reform Commission, a prestigious position. I have a good impression of his work. He had the unusual attitude to be rather frank and direct. On 13 March he gave a presentation on Beijing’s 11th Five Year Plan. During the Q&A I asked a question: What was Beijing doing to implement the policy on energy conservation in public buildings where during winter temperatures go up to 28C due to excessive heating, while the “Energy Police” set up under the vice mayor was doing little about it. He explained there was indeed a problem – the government was unable to enforce the policy as the legal framework was lagging behind. He said new regulations would come out by the end of this year. That was at least honest. See the article with a picture of me asking the question.

Vice mayor Lu Hao is less forthcoming. At a seminar organized by the EUCCC on 12 December 2005 I asked the question – when Beijing would improve its transparency for public tenders by publishing them in an open and timely manner. The vice mayor replied: “Foreigners maybe don’t read Chinese newspapers nor China Daily”. This is not exactly what participating companies comment in the EUCCC Public Procurement Group: the feeling is that less than 10% of public tenders are properly published, and the members do read China Daily, Chinese newspapers and websites. Particularly for the European SMEs this is a serious issue, as officially mentioned in the EUCCC Position Paper that was handed over to the vice mayor during the meeting. Maybe some officials need a second reading of China Daily and the Chinese newspapers.

The EUCCC (European Chamber of Commerce in China) is becoming stronger by the day. With 830 member companies totally in China and 28 Working Groups in Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing the Chamber has become an entity respected by the Chinese authorities.
Their website: www.europeanchamber.com.cn
I am myself deeply involved as Chairperson of the Public Procurement Working Group, a Group set up earlier last year. It gives me quite a lot of work, especially in the past weeks as the EU has paid a lot of attention to Government Procurement – a theme handled by our working Group. But I could never achieve the results without the valuable assistance of the “business managers”. Their role is important – they help set up the meetings, the agenda, write the minutes of meeting, liaison with the EU Delegation (EU Embassy as we call it…) in Beijing and actively help to write the yearly Position Paper. For me, they also motivate and encourage our work. Reason why the Groups are so active and receive the attention from both the EU Delegation in Beijing and the EU in Brussels.

So it was a bit of a sad day during our last meeting of 8 June – to say farewell to Delphine Salaün, our business manager, who has given me such fantastic help – and always with a smile. We all wish her the best in her next destination – Denmark.
Her successor has been named and we are sure she will manage as well – welcome Maria Morell!

Belgium is a rather small country, we all know. Some decades ago we still had quite a number of large “real” Belgian companies. With globalization and the openness of the country, many of those are now under foreign control and there are few sizeable companies left that we can call “real Belgian”. Bekaert is one. Barco, Picanol are others – I stop here because it’s getting difficult to know for sure who can still be considered “real Belgian”.
Bekaert with its headquarters in Belgium, is active in 120 countries and employs 16,000 people. They have been active in China in the early eighties and started investing here in 1992. Now they count 15 legal entities in China, representing a total approved investment of over US$ 350 million. For bad for our small country. Their website: www.bekaert.com
On 19 May I had the great pleasure to be invited at the residence of our Belgian Ambassador, Bernard Pierre, for a dinner with Baron Paul Buysse, Chairman of the Board of Bekaert. His CV just looks unreal, the list of titles of all kinds is that long I won’t even try to mention any.

The guest list of the evening was as impressive – how often do you see the ambassadors of the EU, France and Belgium around a small table. Tout le beau monde (excluding myself).
One of those days I feel Belgium still has something to show off.