□　Written by Xiong Yi

Chongqing and France to Build an International First-class City Environment Operation Platform
With 40 French enterprises settled and heating-up cooperation with Paris District

□Written by Xiong Yi

Hand in hand with French energy giant ENGIE Group

“GDF SUEZ Group, which belongs to the French ENGIE Group, has over 30 cooperative projects in China’s over 20 cities, but the most successful one with the biggest investment, the best effect is in Chongqing.”Chaussade, the Global CEO of the Suez Environment Group (belonging to the GDF SUEZ Group), said in the speech delivered on the “China Inland Open International Cooperation Forum” held on the 19th “China Chongqing International Investment and Global Sourcing Fair” in 2016.

In this “China Chongqing International Investment and Global Sourcing Fair” , Chongqing signed ten cooperation agreements on environmental governance, waste incineration power generation, and the construction of sponge city with the French ENGIE Group, one of the world’s leading companies in the energy market.

According to the relevant person in charge of Chongqing Water Asset Management Co. Ltd., in 2015, the French ENGIE Group and the GDF SUEZ Group made a major reorganization for the Sino-French environmental enterprises to build an international operation platform for environmental industries, which is the Derun Environment. In this year’s “Chongqing Fair”, the two sides once again team up to develop the three party strategic cooperation with the Chongqing Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives in order to jointly construct a resource regeneration operation system with the aid of Derun Environment’s capital and technology advantages, ENGIE Group’s operational experience in Europe and Chongqing Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives’ “Dazu Circular Economy Industrial Park” platform.

The system will introduce European renewable resources industry operation pattern to push forward the development of renewable resources industries like the dismantling, processing and utilization of scrapped cars and used laptops and to gradually extend to the recycling and processing of the renewable resources like waste plastics, waste electrical appliances and so on, with Chongqing automobile and notebook computer industries as the foundation. It is understood that the tripartite cooperation will aim at the “Chongqing New Europe”big channel to promote the recycling of renewable resources and strengthen the environmental protection along the line so as to establish arecycling trade system for China-Europe notebook computers and other renewable resources, thus giving a play to the positive role of China in international environmental governance.

“Under this background, China and France's largest environmental investment platform - Derun Environment bred.”Chaussade reveals that Derun Environment, as a pilot project of the innovative development mode, will introduce marketoriented, international investors to achieve standardized corporate governance and market operations through its mixed ownership top-level design and strive in the next 3 to 5 years to build and become “the leading domestic, international firstclass urban environment integrated operator” by giving full play to each cooperator’s advantages in capital, technology, management and operation.

Practical cooperation with Paris District continues to heat up

According to the Chongqing Foreign Economic and Trade Commission statistics, as of April 2016, it has approved a total of 40 French foreign-invested enterprises and absorbed contractual foreign investment of 163.28 million US dollars, of which 148.93 million is used. Chongqing’s accumulated 31.7 investment of million US dollars in France has set up 6 companies whose main industries are hotel management, governance, consultation and agriculture with the main enterprises such as Chongqing Heaven-given Hot Springs Group, Chongqing Wedding Fruits Agriculture Group, Chongqing Foreign Economic and Trade Group, Chongqing Lifan Group and so on.

The French foreign investment enterprises settled in Chongqing are mainly about industry, manufacturing, leasing and business services industry. The business of enterprises Lafarge, Suez, EDF, Schneider, and Boruide covers many areas like chemical industry, material, financial investment and energy supply. It is understood that in the past 14 years cooperation between Chongqing and France, the GDF Suez Group had involved in the development of Chongqing water supply, sewage, sludge and industrial waste water treatment in the fi eld of environmental protection and its total investment in Chongqing had reached over 4 billion yuan. And now the cooperation among Chongqing government, Chongqing Water Assets Company and GDF Suez Group has become a paradigm of public-private partnership mode in China’s environmental protection industry and they will further expand the fi eld of cooperation to soil remediation, air pollution control and industrial park development for environmental protection.

According to the person in charge of Chongqing Foreign Economic and Trade Commission, in November 2015, the Commission made an in-depth and pragmatic communication with the Chinese representative, who is the senior project manager for Paris District Development Agency and was taking a visit to Chongqing, about the cooperation between Chongqing and Paris district government and put forward three cooperation proposals after fully discussing the future feasible direction. One is that the Paris district’s enterprises participate in the trade construction of Chongqing headquarters to promote Chongqing’s important support for the western development and opening up and its bridgehead role play as “One Belt, One Road” and “Chongqing New Europe” respectively; a second is to establish a regular meeting mechanism to maintain close ties between the two sides and when necessary, to set up administrative institutions in Chongqing; a third is to make clear the cooperation plan so as to provide a strong support for the economic and trade exchanges between the two sides and promote mutual visits in economy and trade between the two governments and their enterprises. The Chinese representative for Paris District Development Agency said he was very willing to jointly promote economic and trade exchanges between the two sides with Chongqing Foreign Economic and Trade Commission and to help more excellent enterprises benefi t from the cooperation.

It is revealed that after discussion, both Chongqing and France believes that the enterprises of the Paris District have the opportunity to participate in the trade construction of Chongqing headquarters by taking advantage of Chongqing’s important support for the western development and opening up as “One Belt, One Road” and its position as the starting point of the “Chongqing New Europe” line, through which the two markets will establish ties. Chongqing will continue to maintain communication with the Paris District on this project in order to understand the needs and wishes of the other side. Meanwhile, the Paris district is also actively organizing to recommend French companies to visit Chongqing.

Chongqing and France have maintained good economic and trade exchanges. It is understood that the French ongoing “Future Industry” plan is similar to Sino “Made in China 2025”. This plan will play a central role in the second phase of the “Industrial New France” and it is aimed at making industrial tools more modern and achieving the transformation of economic growth mode through digital technology. Chongqing also has a solid industrial base which fits quite well with the French industries, making great prospects for cooperation and the two sides can strengthen exchanges in the field of industrial manufacturing and seek new opportunities for cooperation in the fi led of automobile making, machine tools, robots and so