ChinaEU’s little Christmas gift for you

EU-China Digital Tourism 

Ms. Jane Sie Sun, CEO of Ctrip – China’s largest online travel platform – met with the President of the European Parliament Mr. Antonio Tajani. On her trip to Europe Ms. Sun talked about Europe as a top destination for Chinese tourists, Mr. Tajani congratulated Ms. Sun for her efforts in earmarking Europe as a priority destination for Chinese tourists. ChinaEU is proud to have made such meetings possible and contribute to the 2018 EU-China year of tourism.

Amongst the attendees were Special Counselor at DG Grow Mr. Eric Philippart, MEP Ms. Elisabetta Gardini, Welcome Chinese President Mr Jacopo Sertoli, China Channel Co-Founder & WeChat expert Matthew Brennan. Apps such as Ctrip and WeChat and their ability to bring more Chinese tourists to Europe were discussed during the event. Mr. Philippart shared his opinion on visa liberalization. Check out the best moments of the event in this video.

Tourism plays an important role in the EU because of its economic and employment potential. The high-level conference of tourism, organized under the wings of President of the European Parliament Mr. Tajani, was a testament to the EU’s commitment to tourism. Amongst the speakers were H.E. Yang Yanyi, Chinese Ambassador to the EU, and Mr. Zhu Xiaolu, Senior Vice-President of Ctrip. In 2018, the EU-China tourism year will bring huge opportunities to Europe. More coverage on this event on our newsletter!

High-level Cooperation

 

Mr. Luigi Gambardella, President of ChinaEU, and Ms. Claudia Vernotti, Director of ChinaEU, were honored to have been invited to the Belt and Road Forum, opened by President Xi Jinping. The event was attended by more than 130 countries, 70 international organizations, and 29 heads of state. President Xi delivered a strong message of inclusiveness: the Belt and Road initiative is open to all countries that are interested in it. Find out more here.

Both Mr. Luigi Gambardella, President of ChinaEU, and Ms. Claudia Vernotti, Director of ChinaEU, spoke at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Forum on Digital Connectivity. This event, hold in the city of Qingdao, was opened by H.E. Wang Yang, Vice-Premier of China. ChinaEU stressed the importance of big data technology to improve business models, digitize production and upgrade industries. More coverage on our website!

In early September, world famous entrepreneurs, scientists, artists and scholars flocked to Shenzhen for the Global Innovator Conference (GIC). Co-hosted by CCPIT, CCOIC, APEC China Business Council and Y-Intelligence, GIC provided a valuable resource integration platform to global innovators. ChinaEU was honored to organize a panel discussion at the event on the Value Chain of 5G, the coming revolution in mobile communications. Key stakeholders including Mr. Francesco Profumo, Former Italian Minister of Education and Research and President of Italian tower company INWIT, Ms. Chih-Lin I, Chief Scientist for wireless technologies at China Mobile, and Mr. Wang Jiayi, Managing Director of 5G Ran Solutions at ZTE Corporation shared their visions on 5G and its practical applications. More details of the discussion and other inspiring speeches at GIC can be found here!

Once a year the Chinese government hosts the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. This 4th edition attracted the biggest companies in the internet sector. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, Jack Ma, Chairman and Founder of Alibaba, and Pony Ma, Founder and CEO of Tencent, Baidu CEO Robin Li, JD.com Founder & CEO Liu Qiangdong, Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun, on top of executives of Facebook, Amazon, eBay, LinkedIn etc. were all present. ChinaEU was honored to be invited to the forum and Mr. Luigi Gambardella gave a spirited speech on cultural exchange and the internet. To check out more about ChinaEU at WIC, and see Chinese innovation for the future, go to our website!

Together with H.E. Li Ruiyu, the Chinese Ambassador to Italy, ChinaEU organized a high-level conference during the festival of diplomacy in Rome. During this conference, important subjects related to the digital leg of China’s Belt and Road Initiative were discussed. Around 100 guests including prominent politicians and business leaders had a lively exchange of their opinions on how to improve Italy-China digital cooperation by means of the Belt and Road Initiative. Leading businesses including ZTE, Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, as well as Open Fiber, Novari Holding etc. joined the discussion. Detailed information can be found here.

Startups & Innovation Exchange

Director of ChinaEU, Ms. Claudia Vernotti, attended Startup Olé conference in Salamanca, Spain, and spoke in the discussion on ‘Partnering with Europe: Beyond the EU’. She talked about the opportunities for the European startup community to soft land in China and announced the set-up of a new network to connect the European and Chinese startup-ecosystems. Learn more on our website.

Claudia Vernotti of ChinaEU and Lucas Rondez, Founder and CEO of niHUB, explored the Dutch startup ecosystem together in order to identify the opportunities for linking it to the Chinese startup ecosystem. They visited over 10 incubators, co-working spaces, innovation centers and venture capital firms. Read all about the visit on our website. ChinaEU and niHUB signed a partnership to work together to introduce innovative European projects to China.

Claudia Vernotti, Director of ChinaEU, was invited to deliver the final prizes to the winners of Protechting-InnoStar, Fosun’s Global Innovation Competition, in Ningbo. Three European projects, alumni of Fosun’s acceleration program in Portugal, were selected to join the competition together with other ten Chinese projects. The final winner was a Spanish insure-tech startup. Find out more on our website!

Italia Startup and ChinaEU have signed an MoU with the aim of building stronger links between the Italian and Chinese startup communities, in particular to support Italian startups to grasp the opportunities offered by the growing Chinese digital market. More info on the website of Italia Startup!

ChinaEU brought seven Italian startups to the Y-Intelligence Community in the 898 InnoSpace in Beijing. At the roadshow, each startup pitched their innovative projects in areas such human-machine interaction, medical care, environmental sustainability, space science and technology to an audience of Chinese VCs.

ChinaEU hosted a Shenzhen delegation together with Shenzhen Representative Office in Europe and gave it a tour to the Belgium Startup Ecosystem. Three big players in the ecosystem were visited: Startups.be, the one-stop-shop for the Belgian startups aiming to scale up and go global, B.Central, brand-new co-working space and event organizer in the heart of Brussels, and ICAB, a top-tier co-working space, incubator and accelerator for ICT and engineering projects.

Regulatory Study & Exchange

ChinaEU legal expert Christian Hocepied, together with ChinaEU President Luigi Gambardella, met with the Chinese experts of the EU-China subgroup on digital economy to discuss about digital regulation. The session was followed by a visit of ChinaEU and CIDF to KU Leuven Center for IT & IP law.

ChinaEU attended the Digital Regulation Forum in London for the 3rd consecutive year and hosted a panel discussion to introduce the Chinese approach to digital regulation and give an overview on China’s prolific environment of digital services. Find out what experts such as Robert Pepper, Head of Global connectivity and Technology Policy of Facebook, Lise Fuhr, Director general of ETNO, Roslyn Layton, Advisor to Donald Trump, Tom Griffiths, Creative Strategy Director at London-based digital marketing agency Qumin, Zhao Shuyu, researcher at the Internet Law Center of the China Academy of ICT, Ji Bo, Chief Representative for CKGSB Europe had to say on our website!

ChinaEU hosted a delegation from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) on a fact-finding mission in the EU. The main goal was to investigate the General Data Protection Regulation and its implementation. Introduced by ChinaEU legal counselor Christian Hocepied, the closed-door seminar had high-level speakers including Ms. Erika Mann, former head of Facebook’s Brussels office and top lawyer at Covington & Burling in Brussels, Mr. Chris Gow, Head of EU Public Policy for Cisco and DIGITAL EUROPE Board Member, and Mr. Cedric Burton, legal expert of international law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The CAC was mainly interested in the relations and disparities between the EU level and the Member State level.  What did they find out, and what did we offer to them? Find out on our website!

The Internet Governance Forum is the only global multi-stakeholder platform to discuss key aspects of Internet Governance. This year it engaged again a great number of prominent representatives from civil society, industry, the technical community and decision makers, amongst whom Commissioner Mariya Gabriel also attended. This year’s debate shed light on “Shape Your Digital Future! How technologies will impact every aspect of our future society?” An open forum hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China about the impact of China’s internet policies on digital future drew lots of interest from the audience. Luigi Gambardella had the honor to be invited as one of the panelists. He stressed the decisive role of Chinese corporations in the Chinese digital success story, and the key for him is policies favoring innovation. In the margin of IGF, Luigi also had the pleasure to catch up with Mr. Zhao Houlin, the Secretary General of ITU.