By Wu Siya

 

BEIJING, May 14 (China Economic Net)- "In the past few decades, China has made tremendous achievements for all to see. European companies are willing to bring technology and foster mutual learning with their Chinese counterparts, by which we could further improve the development level of the global supply chain," Adam Dunnett, secretary-general of the European Chamber of Commerce in China, shed light on the prospects for European companies to coexist with opportunities and challenges in China, during an interview with China Economic Net on the sidelines of Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit 2024 that held in Beijing on May 13.

 

 

In this third edition, the summit is another major platform to bring together Chinese and foreign business leaders to boost trade and investment cooperation. This year’s event was attended by 750 representatives, including over 300 representatives from 39 countries and regions and 170 foreign organizations.

 

Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China, commended China’s major role in helping stabilize global supply chains amid increasing levels of conflicts and major disruptions to supply chains. 

 

“We need China’s leadership in the global landscape, to accelerate more integration, more movement of good supplies and people so that we in effect see a very integrated global business community,” Chatterjee added. 

 

As for the prospect of EU companies, Dunnett said frankly, “it’s unrealistic to decoupling from China. Due to the resilience of the Chinese economy and the importance of the Chinese market, our companies realize that they cannot do without China. EUCCC have more than 1,800 members across China, many of whom have increased their investments here to ensure the security of the supply chain.”

 

Recently, US officials and media have been relentlessly smearing China's economic prospects with absurd claims such as “overcapacity” and “disturb of global supply chain”. In this regard, Dunnett stated his views objectively to CEN. 

 

 

“Undoubtedly, China’s production capacity ranks first, to create global growth, which is very gratifying. But obviously, products need to be purchased and consumed, as well as it should be done on a sustainable basis, which requires global supply chain to play its due role. China’s products, especially new energy products that are very helpful in mitigating climate change, such as electric vehicles and solar panels, need to be circulated to other parts of the world through this operation process, which also reflects the trade sustainability that I have long advocated. With the emergence of new economic models, modern logistics technologies and the like, the global supply system must ensure a sustainable way to avoid the world falling into the quagmire of protectionism.

 

Drilling Specialist Mncedisi Makhamba, from South Africa, put forward another perspective on “overcapacity” from the perspective of developing countries, “Overcapacity? Is it a 100 percent negative word? it’s not a bad thing, to my way of thinking, which means that you have more than enough to help others through our shared supply chain, such as those in developing countries with relatively backward production capacity. Moreover, excess can stimulate competition of survival of the fittest, just like panning for gold in the sand. Companies will do their best to be the one left behind.”

 

As Mme. Dilma Rousseff, President of New Development Bank, put forward in her opening speech at the summit, “According to a World Bank report on the impact of decoupling and reshoring policies on global supply chains, data show that the United States’ imports from China decrease, from a peak of 21.6 percent in 2017, to 13.2 percent in 2023, but this does not mean that the US has become less dependent on China, because those countries that are more deeply involved in China’s supply chain have the fastest growth in exports to the US. Obviously, this is because as an indispensable part of the global supply chain, China is the largest, most diverse, deepest and most extensive industrial center in the world.”