under the invitation of president xi jinping, norwegian king harald v paid a state visit to china. during this time, the china enterprise confederation and the norwegian chamber of commerce and industry jointly organized a sino-norwegian corporate high-level roundtable in order to further strengthen the economic cooperation between china and norway and to promote economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.
nearly 60 representatives from the two countries in the fields of petroleum, chemical, maritime, energy, food, health, and digital technology gathered together. hao zhigang, chairman and party secretary of (group) co, ltd; as well as helga, director of bluestar and ceo of elkem company, attended the meeting.
harald v’s visit to china aimed to continuously deepen and expand the pragmatic cooperation between the two countries in various fields and to make comprehensive institutional arrangements for bilateral economic and trade cooperation to achieve a higher level of mutual benefits. this high-level roundtable meeting of enterprises was a practical move to promote further cooperation between the two economies. the participants exchanged ideas and discussed business opportunities, which laid a good foundation for corporate cooperation between the two countries in the future.
mr. hao zhigang delivered a speech in the exchange on the theme of “china-norway trade investment and corporate sustainable development”. he briefed the participants on the international strategy and development of bluestar, the efforts and achievements which bluestar has made in the cultural integration of chinese and foreign companies. more importantly, he stressed on the development of norway-based elkem company. after its acquisition by the bluestar since 2011, elkem company has integrated its silicon industrial assets, finalized the company’s ipo, and made contributions to the development of the global silicon industry.
after the meeting, met with the representatives of the participating companies. he affirmed the outstanding contributions made by chinese enterprises in norwegian economic development and trade exchanges. particularly, he expressed his appraise for the successful investment of china national bluestar (group) co, ltd in norway, and the useful explorations on the in-depth cooperation between the economies, which has become a classic example of sino-norwegian trade relations. harald v hoped that, in the future, both countries will continue to increase cooperation and deepen economic exchanges between the two sides and to make positive contributions to the economic development of china and norway.