China, EU partners in reform

The Central Economic Work Conference identified greater openness as one of six priority tasks. This approach is welcome indeed. European stakeholders have experienced restrictions because of a piecemeal opening of markets and control of foreign investment. In key sectors such as financial services, China would benefit from more openness given that foreign banks had a market share of less than 2 percent in China in 2012.

European stakeholders remain committed to the Chinese market, and support the development of domestic consumption, services and innovation. China continues to be a priority in global strategies. There are high expectations for new developments, such as the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

The last EU-China Summit marked the beginning of a new strategic agenda for cooperation and the launch of investment agreement negotiations. We need to make sure that market players from one country or region can invest safely in another and support fair access to markets.

The EU also sees China's accession to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement as mutually beneficial. The accession process should be accelerated. The time has now come to ensure broader market access to China's public procurement. This would be in the interests of the Chinese people, giving them better value for their money as China's infrastructure is being improved to meet the challenges of urbanization.

As all these reforms are rolled out, it is crucial that we do not create new imbalances in trade, financial regulation, public finances or currencies that could spark a new crisis. This rebalancing must be coordinated in global forums, where both the EU and China have a key role to play.

The G20 has emerged as the premier forum to develop joint responses to global economic challenges. Thanks to the determination shown by world leaders in that forum, many of the necessary rules have now been agreed, particularly in financial services. Now we turn to the difficult task of implementing them. As we do so, we need to cooperate closely, for instance through peer reviews, to make sure our implementation is coherent and the rules in place in each territory are equally robust and can be recognized as equivalent when appropriate.

But we need to cooperate more closely in other areas too, issues that touch our people in their daily lives, such as improving our performance on the environmental front and food safety. And we need to focus our attention on sustainable, "green" growth, and on finding ways to protect intellectual property rights and exploit their value as a real asset and driver of economic progress.

With prudence and determination, we need to build on our new strategic agenda for cooperation, come out of the crisis stronger and lay the foundation for a more sustainable, more balanced path to future growth.

The author is member of the European Commission, responsible for Internal Market and Services.

(China Daily 01/03/2014 page9)