USCBC Board Meets Senior PRC Officials in Beijing

A delegation of the US-China Business Council’s (USCBC) board of directors visited Beijing for meetings with the PRC government on November 4-5. USCBC Chair Andrew Liveris of the Dow Chemical Co. led the delegation, which included 10 other board directors and USCBC President John Frisbie.

The delegation met with top leaders, including PRC Vice Premier Wang Qishan, National Development and Reform Commission Chair Zhang Ping, Minister of Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong, Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong, and China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Chair Wan Jifei. US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman and top US embassy officials for trade, economic, and financial affairs briefed the delegation on the bilateral relationship before the meetings.

China 2010 Business Climate Projections

USCBC held a fall conference on China business climate projections in Shanghai in November. At the event, industry and government speakers shared their insights on development trends that affect Shanghai’s business community, including the future of China’s economy, labor market, regulatory landscape, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) compliance.

Robert Poole, USCBC vice president of China Operations, opened the conference by discussing perspectives on US-China trade and investment relations. Robin Bordie, an economist at BHP Billiton, discussed China’s economic outlook for 2010. She noted that domestic savings-led investment, rather than external demand, has fueled China’s economic recovery and predicted that global trade will resume recognizable patterns by the third quarter of 2010. Ron Cai, a managing partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, gave an update on the implementation of the PRC Labor Contract Law. Chris Watkins, country manager at MRI China Group, discussed the impact of the current economic downturn on the PRC labor market, future trends in companies’ talent management strategies, long-term global and regional trends that affect talent supply and demand, and the benefits and challenges of hiring locally.

In the late morning, John Leary, a managing partner at White & Case LLP, discussed future developments in China’s regulatory framework and the potential impact on corporate structure. Lesli Ligorner, a partner at Paul Hastings LLP, followed with a presentation on the key concepts and emerging issues in the enforcement of the FCPA. The luncheon speaker, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce Chair Sha Hailin, provided USCBC member companies with Shanghai’s economic outlook for 2010. Sha spoke broadly about Shanghai’s economic development agenda and its main goal of becoming an international financial center by 2020. He reiterated existing municipal plans to encourage foreign-invested enterprises to establish their regional headquarters in Shanghai and discussed the city’s efforts to accelerate the movement of goods through its ports.

USCBC Hosts Gala 2009, Honors PRC Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong

The US-China Business Council (USCBC) held its Gala 2009 in Washington, DC, in early December. Attended by nearly 450 guests from the business, government, diplomatic, and think-tank communities, the event honored PRC Ambassador to the United States Zhou Wenzhong for his lengthy career fostering US-China relations. USCBC Chair and Dow Chemical Co. Chairman and CEO Andrew N. Liveris discussed USCBC’s work over the last year and reviewed Zhou’s diplomatic career. In his address, Zhou discussed China’s recent economic and trade trends and praised improvements in US-China diplomatic and commercial relations, noting that many companies in the room had helped boost bilateral commercial relations. At the end of the dinner, USCBC President John Frisbie presented Zhou with a series of photographs from Zhou’s career. Spanning 30 years, the photos traced Zhou’s diplomatic career fostering US-China cooperation.

USCBC would like to thank its members for their support. The generous response from many member companies will help support USCBC’s work, leadership, and achievements; it also helped raise money for the China Education Initiative, a China-based rural education organization that works to eliminate educational inequity.