Asian, European Business People Confident in China's Economic Prospects

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Asian, European Business People Confident in China's Economic Prospects

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"The overall effect of the SARS epidemic on the Chinese business community is minimal because of the efficiency of the government," said Edmund James, Chairman of the Far-Sighted Investment International Public Company of the UK, during an interview on Tuesday.

"Initially, we anticipated that it would take maybe six months, but instead it took only two months for China to eliminate the virus," said Mr. James, who was invited to participate as an observer in the High Level Economic Forum of the 5th ASEM Economic Ministers' Meeting.

A veteran investment banker, he was recently involved in a business merger with turnover totaling 900 million yuan (1.1 million U.S. dollars) in Guangzhou, southern China.

"As an investment banker, I have done a great deal of traveling in China. I think it is very safe," he said.

"Europe needs to cooperate with China, because China has an enormously huge market," said Adriana Schiavon, a middle-aged public relations official with the Consorzio Qualita Italia, a consortium of Italian-design manufacturers.

"Cooperation with China will breathe oxygen into our economy," added the lady, who first came to China in 1990 and who has learned to speak some Chinese in Beijing.

Elmar R. Seidel, a smart Austrian businessman, set up a photography and design company in Dalian several years ago. The vast influx of tourists benefits his business enormously.

Mr. Seidel suggested that the Austrian business community should invest more in burgeoning cities like Dalian rather than in major cities like Shanghai, which has already absorbed abundant foreign investment.

Oystein Mikkelsen, Chairman of the foreign-financed Lenticular Lens Ltd, told Xinhua that Dalian's good ecological and investment environments had drawn him to settle there. He said he sees bright prospects for his company in the field of lenticular technology in China.

The forum was held Tuesday as part of the 5th ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) Economic Ministers' Meeting.

The ASEM, initiated in 1996, includes 15 European Union countries, seven ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries, the Republic of Korea, Japan and China. Over 300 delegates from those countries will participate in the ministers' meeting, which will be held in northeast China's Dalian city from July 22 to 24.

"China is a new member of the WTO, however, it has become the sixth largest economy in the world. It will therefore play a very important role in future multilateral economic negotiations," Mr. Hwang Doo-yun, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea, told the forum.

Mr. George Yeo Yong-Boon, Minister of Trade and Industry of Singapore, believes that the steps China takes in the coming years to establish a broad-based tax system, a rational social security and health-care benefits system and a regional framework of peace and cooperation will create favorable conditions for China's continuing economic development for decades to come.

"Such a China will bring prosperity to all of Asia," said the minister, concluding his speech.

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