EU is China's n°1 trade partner and China is EU's 2nd trade partner (with over a billion euro traded per day). Although many market access restrictions still exist today for trade in goods, it is especially trade in services and investment that are two areas of vast, untapped potential in EU-China Trade (only 2% of EU's Investments (FDI) go to China, while 30% of them go to the US). In order to boost the investment potential, EU and China started early 2014 negotiations for a 'Comprehensive Agreement on Investment' (CAI). This is expected to become the agreement of a generation and a real game-changer (the potential for two-way investment runs in the trillions of euros).
The presentation by Ms Vanderstraeten will give you an insight in what these investment negotiations are about, which investments are covered, what are the building blocks of this agreement and, most importantly, what is concretely in it for you? In other words, how will EU approach the concrete market access problems and barriers that you face in the Chinese market? How will EU tackle issues such as investment caps, forced JV, forced or illegal technology transfer, discrimination towards foreigners, monopolies (of SOEs), limitations on licensing and other issues that EU industry is facing on a daily basis in China. Also issues as how EU will ensure protection of investments (e.g. observance of written commitments by Chinese government) and enforcement of the agreement will be touched upon in the presentation.
This will be a 45 minutes presentation with possibility for Q&A for also 45 minutes.