ICC and ICC China strengthen partnership at Beijing conference
ICC recently marked an important step in its new partnership with ICC China by convening the first Beijing World Business Leaders Conference on Friday, 28 September following a memorandum of cooperation signed earlier this year.
ICC China is hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the China Chamber of International Commerce.
More than 300 business leaders from China and abroad attended the one-day conference, which was preceded by the first ICC Executive Board meeting held in Beijing, on 27 September.
Executives attending the conference participated in a session on finance and economic growth, as well as a session on international trade and investment that featured the unveiling of ICC’s draft Business World Trade Agenda recommendations.
“The conference in Beijing provided a tremendous opportunity to begin building consensus in the global business community on what developments are necessary for strengthening the multilateral trading system and for improving the quality of the financial services sector,” said ICC Secretary General Jean-Guy Carrier.
ICC presented its draft World Trade Agenda (WTA) recommendations to journalists ahead of the conference. The WTA initiative is intended to mobilize world business behind a forward-looking multilateral trade and investment policy agenda and to provide recommendations to governments in the first half of next year to address the urgency of declining trade, which has been further hampered by the shortage of trade finance and the rising threat of protectionism.
The draft trade recommendations were delivered at the 28 September media conference by ICC Vice-Chairman Victor K. Fung, ICC Chairman Gerard Worms and the newly-appointed Secretary General of ICC China, Lin Shunjie.
“We are gathering opinions from business, starting in Beijing, on our draft trade recommendations. We believe that business is uniquely placed to offer innovative ways for overcoming obstacles in the Doha Round of trade negotiations,” Mr Carrier said.
ICC will be holding consultations to gather input for the final recommendations to be delivered at the World Business Summit, part of the ICC World Chambers Federation 8th World Chambers Congress, being hosted by the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry in April 2013.
CCPIT Vice-Chairman Zhang Wei has expressed his determination to work closely with ICC on a number of projects over the next year. ICC’s next event in China will be a meeting of the ICC Commission on Intellectual Property in Beijing, including a conference on “International Industry and Commerce Intellectual Property Seminar: Increasing economic and business competitiveness using intellectual assets”.
Future plans also include an exchange of personnel for visits of several weeks in order to strengthen the partnership between ICC and ICC China.
