2016-06-07

At 9:30 am of June 7^th, 2016, Dr. Walter HU, Deputy Secretary General of ECMDC, Mr. Antonio Stefano, Legal Assistant of ECMDC accompanied Mr. Henrich Guntermann, CEO of European Consortium of Technology Transfer (ECTT), the partner of ECMDC to visit Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). ECMDC Delegation met with Ms. XIAO Shitao, Deputy Director of Science & Technology Development Bureau (STDB) and Director of Science & Technology Development Center (STDC) of Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee (SIPAC), Mr. CAO Dawei, Chief of Division of International Cooperation of STDB of SIPAC, Ms. SUN Jing, Deputy Chief of Division of International Cooperation of STDB of SIPAC, Mr. WANG Yun, Deputy Chief of Division of Innovation & Cooperation of STDC of SIPAC and Ms. JIANG Zhihui, Vice Director of Division 1 of STDC of SIPAC. Both parties had discussed the road map of Sino-European sci-tech innovation cooperation.

Dr. Walter HU (Left Three) and Ms. Xiao Shitao (Right Three), Mr. Henrich Guntermann (Right Two), Mr. Antonio Stefano (Right One), Ms. SUN Jing (Left One), Ms. JIANG Zhihui (Left Two)

Accompanied by Ms. SUN Jing, Mr. Henrich Guntermann and his companions had visited Suzhou Industrial Park Urban Planning Exhibition Center and Suzhou Dusu Lake Science and Education Innovation District. The beautiful environment of SIP and its future development with the full vigor and vitality, all of these greatly impressed upon European friends.

Mr. Henrich Guntermann (Middle) and Ms. SUN Jing, Mr. Antonio Stefano in front of the Map of SIP Administrative Territory

At the ensuing bilateral meeting, Ms. XIAO Shitao firstly extended her welcome to the distinguished guests. She said, SIP, the vanguard of China’s reform and opening-up policy, sincerely welcome European friends to visit and discuss the cooperation. She remarked, SIPAC would provide the high-quality services and sincerely expected to carry out the cooperation with ECTT. Mr. Guntermann expressed his thanks for the warm reception from SIP. He said, as the partner of ECMDC, ECTT was being actively participating in the work of promoting Sino-European sci-tech financial cooperation along with ECMDC in line with the related layout. ECTT stood ready to select high-quality European resources for Chinese partners with its own advantages of three branches in Luxemburg, the financial center of Europe, Germany, the powerful sci-tech European country, and Belgium, the seat of EU headquarters.

Dr. Walter HU introduced the preparatory work of establishing EU-China (Suzhou) Sci-Tech Financial Center along with SIPAC. He said, ECMDC would introduce high-quality European resources into SIP in succession in order to boost its sci-tech innovation. Mr. Guntermann detailed European resources he would bring to SIP. He remarked, seeing was believing. Only those who had the field investigation would come to realize that SIP is the independent city with the administrative territory of 278 square meters and the population of 1 million. While being greatly impressed by what he has seen, Mr. Guntermann believed that SIP had the sufficient appeals that attracted European partners to settle down here and be engaged in the innovation and entrepreneurship. He also pointed out that, since there were cultural differences and different thinking patterns between China and Europe, the primary basis of the mutual cooperation should be the understanding of the actual demands on each side. The more specific the objective was, the higher the rate of success would be. Mr. Guntermann listed a successful case conducted by ECMDC and ECTT as an example. He introduced that when the definite demands of cooperation were confirmed, ECMDC and ECTT had completed all the necessary works within the time frame less than 3 months and would sign the commercial contract soon. It could serve as the good example. Mr. Antonio Stefano provided the further explanation that the key to the successful cooperation between China and Europe was to choose the right partners. Countless failure cases proved that there should exist the cooperation platform like ECMDC that is devoted to the work of coordinating the communication between the European parties and their Chinese counterparts.

Ms. XIAO Shitao seconded the words of Mr. Henrich Guntermann and Mr. Antonio Stefano. She said, the communication concerning the supply and demand between China and Europe was very important and SIPAC would like to carry out the related partnership with ECMDC and ECTT. Mr. Guntermann remarked that he would be quite willing to promote the cooperation between SIP and the concerned European parties from various aspects. He would make a detailed presentation of this visiting to the related federal state governments of Germany and actively promote the partnership between SIPAC and the concerned German authorities. In the meanwhile, he expected SIPAC to gather the actual needs of SIP enterprises and develop the detailed list of the demands for cooperation. With the list, ECTT could move on to the next step. Ms. XIAO Shitao fully agreed with Mr. Guntermann on the road map of cooperation and indicated her willingness of actively promoting the bilateral partnership and turning EU-China (Suzhou) Sci-Tech Financial Center to the efficient platform of Sino-European cooperation along with ECMDC and ECTT.

The meeting concluded amid the friendly atmosphere.