China, EU to promote digital Silk Road

Lu Wei, director of the CAC (front center), and Yang Yanyi, Chinese ambassador to EU (second from right in the front) take a group photo with participants at the first China-EU digital cooperation roundtable. Photo by Gao Shuang / China Daily

A number of senior executives of Chinese ICT giants travel with Lu Wei to Brussels, including those from China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, ZTE, Huawei, and Xiaomi.

It was announced at the summit that China and the EU will establish a joint investment fund, in order to connect China's One Belt, One Road initiative with the EU's 315 billion euro investment plan.

The objective of the roundtable is to seek for implementation of the conclusions reached at the summit.

It explores new areas of cooperation in 5G, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, big data, e-commerce, digital investment and high-tech startups, smart cities and smart energies in particular.

"We believe the digital sector is the key," says Luigi Gambardella, president of ChinaEU. "The time for action is now."

In the presence of director Lu, the China Internet Development Fund (CIDF) signed a letter of intent with ChinaEU. China Unicom and Nokia signed a Momorandum of Understanding, which will deepen their technological cooperation in the next five years.

Lu Wei also met Andrus Ansip, EU's commissioner for a single digital market, and discussed improved connections between EU and China in the digital economy.

The two are expected to reach more consensuses to establish a high-level digital dialogue mechanism, as well as a mechanism to support business startups of high tech companies through various incentives.