CUHK Business School and ESADE Business and Law School Joint Conference

In December 2015, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School and ESADE Business and Law School (ESADE), two of the world’s leading business schools, held a joint conference hosted at the CUHK MBA Town Center in Central, Hong Kong. Over 150 people attended the event with the theme: “China and Europe- Challenges & Opportunities”. The conference celebrated the 50th anniversary of CUHK MBA and provided an ideal platform for academics, industry leaders and government officials from Hong Kong and Barcelona to share their insights on recent economic developments and the growing potentials for doing business in China and Europe. China is now the second largest trading partner of the European Union (EU) behind the United States while the EU is China’s biggest trading partner. China and Europe now trade over one billion euros a day.

CUHK Business School and ESADE have built a strong relationship as exchange partners for their MBA students since 1999. This collaboration was further extended during the conference with the signing of a new undergraduate exchange agreement by Professor Kalok Chan, Dean of CUHK Business School and Professor Josep Franch, Dean of ESADE Business School. From 2016, undergraduate students of the two business schools can go abroad to learn and stay in each other’s campus. CUHK Business School is committed to equipping its students with a global perspective, and has signed up exclusive exchange agreements with more than 34 top business schools worldwide.

The conference program included two panel discussions. The first panel titled “China’s New Growth Engine” with speakers from CUHK Business School including T.J. Wong, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Accountancy and Director of Center for Institutions and Governance, as well as Xufei Ma, Associate Professor at the Department of Management. The second panel was called “Opportunities and Challenges in Europe” with representatives from Barcelona and ESADE including the Dean of the Business School, Professor Josep Franch.

At the keynote address by Prof. Ivana Casaburi, Associate Professor of Marketing, Executive Director of the Executive Master Programs and Director of the ESADE China-Europe Center, she shared the findings from the new report entitled “Chinese Investment in Europe 2015”, with the following highlights:

• The top destinations for Chinese investment in Europe between 2010 and 2014 were the United Kingdom (46.7%), Italy (21%), Portugal (10.6%) and France (9.5%).
• During the same period, Europe received a total of $58.3 billion from China, of which $20.17 billion were invested in 2014 alone, a 117% increase over the previous year.
• Between 2010 and 2014, 95% of Chinese investment in Europe was concentrated in seven sectors: energy ($18.17 billion, or 31.2% of the total); real estate ($13.35 billion, 22.9%); manufacturing ($7.85 billion, 13.5%); agribusiness ($4.88 billion, 8.4%); finance ($4.25 billion, 7.3%); logistics, transport and infrastructure ($4.06 billion, 7%); and telecommunications and software ($2.65 billion, 4.5%).
• In the coming years, various factors will play a key role in significantly increasing China’s direct investment in Europe. These factors include the current negotiations towards a bilateral investment treaty, rising income levels among Chinese citizens, the Juncker Plan, new co-investment vehicles between the Chinese government and various European governments, large-scale projects like the “New Silk Road”, and new multilateral institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB).

Prof. Casaburi commented: “China is and will remain the engine of the world economy. The recent decline in China’s GDP indicates that its economic growth has reached a stage of maturity.”

Link to report: Chinese Investment in Europe 2015