Radio France Internationale reported that, at the China International Import Expo (CIIE), Chinese President Xi Jinping made a commitment to continue to open up the Chinese market and give fair treatment to foreign companies doing business in China. The statement did not augment the EU’s confidence in China. Carlo D’Andrea, vice president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and chairman of the Shanghai Chapter expressed his disappointment on Tuesday. In the statement that the European Union Chamber of Commerce issued, he pointed out that much of the content in the speech that Xi delivered echoed what had previously been announced. There were two developments in the speech that were noted, which were removing caps on foreign investments in education and in medical services. According to the RFI article, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China believes that, since the previous commitments have not been fulfilled, the European Union has become increasingly insensitive to the promises that China has made. Kenneth Jarrett, the President of the Shanghai office of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said that so far, as the world’s second largest economy, China should be able to open its doors. According to Andrea, China will not be considered to have made a major and positive structural change until it allows international companies to compete with Chinese companies on an equal basis. In his interview with Bloomberg, Andrea said that Xi promised to open up China’s market during the Davos Forum in 2017 but many promises have not been fulfilled. The EU believes that China has more than one hundred restrictions on foreign companies in China, and the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China recently issued the “Shanghai Proposal 2018-2019,” which details the acts that the EU hopes China can take in order to let Shanghai become one of the world’s financial market centers. “2020 is the time that Shanghai has set for itself to be the center of the world’s financial market, and as of now, there is way too much incomplete homework to do.”
Source: Radio France Internationale, November 6, 2018
http://rfi.my/3Ig6.T