ICARE participated last week to a major exhibition involving both China and the EU.

Beijing Exhibition Center hosted the EU-China Exhibition on Urban Development from 20th to 23th November. The forum gathered a large number of Chinese and European stakeholders focusing on the urbanization challenges (green cities, smart grids, clean transportation and building energy efficiency) and the way to deepen the EU-China cooperation.

EU-China partnership

High level officials of both sides took the floor to reaffirm their willingness to strengthen EU-China urbanization partnership. Zhang Gaoli, Chinese first Vice-Premier and the EU Vice-President, Siim Kallas both emphasized that “together Europe and China can lead the way towards sustainable urbanization and create a win-win situation for citizens, business and the environment”. Xu Shaoshi, NDRC chairman, added that “China expects more EU countries and cities as well as enterprises and organizations to establish close and practical partnership with their Chinese counterparts”.

As part of the EU-China cooperation in higher education, ICARE had a major role to play at the event. It was the opportunity for its EU Executive Director, Michel Aublant to meet EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger and discuss ICARE development.

Contacts at ICARE booth

A significant number of media, students, institutes, companies and embassies visited ICARE booth. In particular, the meeting with GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), a major contributor to China wind energy development provided very interesting insights. Head of renewable energy sector of GIZ China, Dr. Sven-Uwe Müller highlighted the potential need of 60 000 new wind turbines and wind farms maintenance engineers and technicians by the end of the decade.

This forum allowed ICARE to get more visibility among students, officials, companies and institutes and to enlarge its network.