Thank you for welcoming us in Beijing and for organising this High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue.
This is the fourth day of my visit to China, which reminded me of the irreplaceable value of face-to-face contact. My trip has also given me a much better feel for this country and its dynamism.
I would also like to congratulate you on the impressive opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
As I already mentioned at the opening of the high-level economic dialogue, it was also an incredible display of technology, culminating with the giant digital torchbearer lighting the Olympic cauldron.
It illustrated China's technological leap: a leap which is also thanks to foreign investment and presence here in China.
I started my visit to China in Shanghai, where foreign direct investment contributes to 25% of the GDP and one-third of tax revenue.
EU companies want to continue being part of this success story.
This is why it was important that we today devoted time to discussing the business environment in China.
We very much hope that we can build on China's 24 State Council guidelines on improving the business environment.
We meet at a time of rising geopolitical tensions and increasing risks for global market fragmentation.
In this context, we discussed the challenges affecting the macroeconomic outlook.
While the EU economy has shown remarkable resilience, wider economic trends are subject to many risks and challenges.
China's economic performance is critical, also for the broader global economy.
We therefore want to resume regular exchanges to discuss macroeconomic issues. Reigniting the Economic and Financial Dialogue and Macroeconomic Dialogue will be important in this regard.
And we look forward to these dialogues in the coming months.
We also discussed shared global challenges.
On this visit, I have been able to convey directly to the Chinese leadership some key messages that are vital for our relations.
Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine represents a massive menace, endangering not only lives but also global food supplies.
In my meeting with Vice Premier He Lifeng, I asked that we increase cooperation aiming to bring back the Black Sea Grain Initiative, working alongside Turkiye and the United Nations.
This is vital to get grains out of Ukraine to the rest of the world.
The weaponisation by Russia of food supplies is negatively affecting global food securityand hurting the developing countries most.
Let me now turn to our trade and investment relationships.
The EU-China trade relationship is one of the biggest in the world, and critical for both sides.
Our total trade in goods reached €857 billion in 2022. And we have accumulated more than €300 billion of foreign direct investments stocks.
But we are concerned about the imbalance in our relationships. The EU has a trade deficit with China of almost €400 billion.
And European companies in China are raising a number of concerns about the business environment.
Addressing these concerns would help China to retain its capacity to attract and retain foreign investment, and meet the objective of sustainable, high quality economic development.
In this context, we both agreed to continue discussions on a possible EU-China transparency mechanism on supply chains for critical raw materials. In the agri-food sector, we will still need to work towards recognition of so-called EU zoning rules, or regionalisation, not to hamper wider exports in case of localised animal disease outbreaks.
Further work will be needed to improve public procurement access for European medical devices. Eliminating barriers is a matter of mutual benefit, and would directly impact the welfare of Chinese citizens by giving them access to the best healthcare technologies available.
Following our talks, we hope to see rapid progress in clearing the backlog of applications for licenses by EU makers of infant formula. And we need to work on a permanent solution to prevent delays in th future.
We also hope to lower the administrative burden and far- reaching disclosure requirements on European cosmetic products sold here in China. We agreed to set a Working Group to address this issue.
Today, we also raised the question of legal uncertainty related to data. This is causing real anxiety among European companies here in China, as new legal rules are making it very cumbersome to operate effectively.
So therefore we need to find a way to facilitate compliance of EU businesses with Chinese data laws. In this context, we will build on – and we welcome – the agreement reached by the European Commission's Vice-President Jourová and Vice-Premier Zhang earlier this month to ensure easier cross-border flows of non-personal data by setting up a mechanism of facilitation of compliance with Chinese data laws for EU companies facing issues on the Chinese market.
Finally, we had an insightful and positive discussion on financial services, setting up a new Working Group on Financial Regulation
The Group will work on key areas including mutually opening up investment opportunities in financial markets for financial institutions; ensuring continued cooperation in Sustainable Finance and Fintech; improving rules on ICT infrastructure for the financial sector, which is vital for our operators to ensure compatibility.
It will also look at regulation on foreign financial institutions, including on the possibility to share financial data across borders.
Finally, we also discussed our shared responsibilities as major global players. We must channel our efforts into ensuring peace and security, and to fight climate change.
Chinese people know this. Just as in Europe, this year's extreme weather events are unprecedented.
These events have an impact not only on the people living in our regions, but also on crops and food supplies.
COP28 offers a great opportunity for us to enhance our cooperation in the fight against climate change.
We must keep an open dialogue in multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations, but also the G20 and the World Trade Organization.
Today we took stock of the progress made in the WTO reform working group, and we discussed preparations of the next ministerial conference - MC13 - in February next year.
Honourable Vice-Premier He Lifeng, thank you once again for hosting us here in Beijing, and for your and your teams' hard work in organising this year's dialogue.
