Today I had my first lecture at Beijing Jiaotong University, from 9 am to well after 11:00. The theme was PPP (Public Private Partnership), taking as an example the Bird’s Nest in Beijing (“National Stadium”). It forced me to retrace some of the colorful stories and details about my work for the project. One could call it, the “untold story of the Bird’s Nest”. Indeed, many things happened on the way and today I mentioned some new facts.

In the afternoon, another delegation from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (AOG School of management), a group of Dutch managers from the MBA program, led by Philip Wagner of the Wagner Group.
Location: Duge Boutique Hotel, Qianyuan’ensi Hutong, near Nanluoguxiang. A hidden old Chinese gem and friendly staff.
The near 2 hour seminar was the usual (and rather unique) introduction to what is China today, the tremendous changes over the past 30 years, doing business in China, its present challenges, plus my book “Toxic Capitalism” and yes, a look back at the 2008 Olympics (as always requested by our Dutch friends).
Enough talking for today…

See the SCMP editorial, 18 April, 2013:
http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1216987/china-needs-break-barriers-innovation?
The article mentions:  “Not a single Chinese firm made it onto the respected consultancy Interbrand’s last list of the world’s top 100 brands.” and looks at some of the causes.
I can’t agree more, I also state the same in my seminars and public talks. I was several times asked to talk in public events on “famous Chinese brands” and pointed out the weaknesses of Chinese brands (even if they actually are pretty good). Other weak points are poor design of their websites, the unwillingness to hire or pay overseas consulting and other services and the rigid Chinese-way operating styles. As I tell our Chinese counterparts: in the eighties you said we had to “adapt to Chinese way” when doing business in China. Now Chinese should do the same in other countries. I also openly criticized the poor PR of Chinese sponsors during the 2008 Olympics: so many chances missed. But you can as well talk to a brick wall.

On 17 April we had a key meeting in the European Chamber (EUCCC) where I was (again) confirmed as chair of the Public Procurement Working Group, a position that I held since I set up the WG in 2005.
The WG is a horizontal one that looks at all public bidding in China, covered by the China Bidding and Tendering Law and the Government Procurement Law, as well as market access generally speaking. According to our estimates it represents a market of around 1 trillion euro per year. Projects covered are power plants, power transmission and distribution, rail and urban transport, water works, etc. Most EU companies have little interest for Government Procurement (I call it “buying stationeries and copy machines for the ministries and the paint for their walls…).

Gilbert with Ms. Yang Dan

We had also a very interesting presentation by Ms. Yang Dan, Deputy Country Director in Beijing for the ADB. She has been deeply involved in public procurement since many years and is probably the most informed specialist I have met in China… She gave us some new insight in possible developments in PPP in China, one of the areas I was deeply involved in during the 2008 Olympics (Public Private Partnerships).