Win-win cooperation amid uncertainty

Closer economic and trade ties between China and France will benefit both sides and inject positive factors into the global economy as it faces increasing recessionary threats, said experts and business executives.

The comments came after a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to China in early April.

During the trip, China and France signed a number of bigticket agreements to deepen bilateral cooperation in traditional areas, such as aviation, aerospace and civilian nuclear energy, as well as in emerging sectors including green development and scientific and technological innovation.

As both countries enrich their business ties, they are leveraging comparative advantages to widen market access and jointly promote high-quality growth, said Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the China Association of Policy Science’s Economic Policy Committee. He noted this is an important development for both countries.

Expanded cooperation between China and France sends a clear message that instead of decoupling, growing relations are a priority for a major European economy like France, he added.

Recent data from the General Administration of Customs showed that in the first quarter of 2023, the trade value between China and France grew by 2.9 percent year-on-year to 131.96 billion yuan ($19.14 billion), a historical high for the period.

Currently, France is China’s third-largest trading partner in the European Union, accounting for 10 percent of China-EU trade, according to customs data.

Lyu Daliang, director-general of the administration’s statistics and analysis department, said that high-quality French consumer goods are popular in the Chinese market. France is the largest import source of cosmetics and wine, and the secondlargest import source of handbags for China.

In the first quarter, China’s import value of such products from France accounted for 31.3 percent, 47.5 percent and 34.2 percent of the country’s total imports in these categories.

Thanks to a complementary industrial structure and willingness to expand cooperation content, France’s investment in the Chinese mainland, in terms of actual use, jumped 635.5 percent between January and March, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed.

Eager to seize a greater market share in China, Adisseo Group, a France-based animal nutrition provider and a subsidiary of State-owned Sinochem Holdings, will open a protein factory in Chongqing and build a specialty factory in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, this year.

Its plant in Chongqing is expected to produce 20,000 metric tons of protein feed on an annual basis this year. The products will be used in fish farming, allowing farmers to replace fishmeal and soy with a high-quality ingredient that requires no arable land and no plant matter.

Jean-Marc Dublanc, CEO of Adisseo, said that initially, the plant’s production will be available for use in China, which is the world’s largest aquaculture market by consumption volume.

“China is a crucial market for us and we see it as the largest market in the world for our products. This is why we opened a new phase of our Nanjing manufacturing base last year that can produce an additional 180,000 tons annually of an important liquid component in animal feed, an essential amino acid called methionine,” said Dublanc.

The French executive said the company’s goal for this year is not only to supply animal feed in China, but to export it abroad, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.