00:00 Adam Dunn is the Secretary General of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
00:04 Adam, welcome, good to see you.
00:06 Just how significant is this visa-free policy?
00:11 It's very significant.
00:12 I think when it first came out, people thought, "Well, this is nice and this is practical
00:17 and helpful."
00:18 But as your previous reporter just mentioned, the people-to-people exchange is probably
00:24 the most important issue that we're dealing with right now.
00:27 At a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, more than anything else, we need people coming
00:33 together, sitting face-to-face and discussing the challenges and issues that they face and
00:37 looking at opportunities for investment in trade as well.
00:41 So obviously, this new policy aims at addressing four different categories of business travelers,
00:49 of families for tourism, transit visas, and family reunions.
00:55 And I think all four groups will clearly benefit.
01:00 And as your reporter also mentioned, yes, some industries will take a hit, the visa-processing
01:05 industries, but quite frankly, that's overall going to be much better for the economy.
01:11 I know many, many business travelers that, quite frankly, always wanted to come to China
01:15 but couldn't come because of times it took and costs that it took to go to visa centers
01:20 to apply accordingly.
01:22 So even though it's only 15 days and even though it's only a trial period, we're confident
01:28 that this will be rolled out more widely to other EU member states and will come in line
01:33 with what other countries in East Asia are doing already.
01:36 If you look at Japan and Thailand and South Korea, this is a very similar policy and we
01:44 hope to see it expanded and for it to be successful.
01:47 What's your prediction?
01:48 Is it going to be business or holidays taking off?
01:54 I think initially it'll be business.
01:57 I think there's a lot of CEOs that want to come and often companies have issues, factories
02:02 that need quickly need engineers coming, fixing things, and CEOs are on tight schedules and
02:08 need to make quick changes and they can benefit immediately from this.
02:11 I think the family vacations, we've already seen a huge exodus of expats from China and
02:18 I think this will help for people to take a second look at China and to come back and
02:23 hopefully to re-install some of the confidence that, quite frankly, is lacking and address
02:29 some of the misunderstandings that have taken place in the last few years.
02:34 We're going to report on COP28 in a few moments, which is, of course, underway in Dubai.
02:38 Are you worried about the environmental consequences of even more flying?
02:46 Not really, because if you look at the Kuznets curve, the famous economic theory in which
02:53 as economies grow, they're able to better address climate issues.
02:59 With that theory having been proven widely in other developed countries, I think we can
03:05 show very well that with the transfer of technologies, with the energy cooperation that we already
03:10 have between the EU and China, that a lot of these technologies, if transferred, can
03:18 help reduce environmental pollution overall and that's the overall goal.
03:21 Adam, good to talk to you.
03:23 Thanks very much for coming on the programme.
03:25 Adam Dunnett, Secretary General of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
03:29 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments