Stakeholders Consultation Meeting on EU-China Circular Economy Cooperation

2018-09-18 | Beijing

Ms Vicky Pollard, First Counsellor, Environment and Climate Change, Delegation of the European Union (EU) to China, gave a presentation on the background of this meeting, the circular economy in 2016 and good cooperation with China Association for Circular Economy (CACE), the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between EU and China to establish cooperation on circular economy, which was signed at the 2018 EU-China Summit and a brief overview of developments in the EU on Circular Economy including on plastics. This meeting was to hear from the stakeholders about their work and priorities for work on circular economy in China and possible areas for EU-China circular economy cooperation.

Mr Zhao Kai, Vice President and Secretary General, CACE of National Development and Reform Commission, recalled the background of the MoU and introduced CACE’s working priorities, for instance, to carry out research and study on reduction of plastics use in China, to help improve relevant standards and norms schemes and to promote green labelling and green supply chains. Professor Wang Yi, member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress also provided updates on the legislative updates and general background for circular economy development.  

Chamber Working Group Coordinator, Kevin Gao, gave an introduction on the Chamber’s role in circular economy. As circular economy is a broad topic, involving the work of eight ministries, efficient cooperation requires good coordination of government agencies. From the EU industry perspective, the following rea could be potential cooperation area, i.e, to do more innovation and research work by using current exiting project such as new callings under the Horizon 2020 and the SWITCH Asia, to exchange best practice among industries from EU and China.