CKGSB Hosts 10th Economic Symposium in Beijing, Spotlighting China-ASEAN and China-Europe Economic Ties

BEIJING, June 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CKGSB), a leading business school in China, hosted its 10th Economic Symposium at its new Beijing campus. The forum brought together ambassadors, policymakers, business leaders, and scholars to examine China's economic outlook and its evolving relationships with ASEAN and Europe amid geopolitical realignment, supply-chain restructuring and rapid technological change.

The CKGSB Economic Symposium is one of the school's flagship policy and business forums. This year, the symposium drew more than 600 registrations — many representing the China leadership of Fortune 500 companies including Abbott, Merck, Siemens, Rolls-Royce and Samsung. Against a backdrop of profound transformation in the global economy, China and ASEAN have been each other's largest trading partners for years, with bilateral trade exceeding USD 1 trillion in 2025, while China and the European Union continue to trade more than €700 billion in goods each year, underscoring the enduring importance of both relationships.

In his opening keynote, CKGSB Dean Li Haitao described an economy increasingly powered by exports and high technology, and pointed to the rapidly growing Global South — now the destination for more than 45% of China's exports — as central to China's next phase of growth. "The Global South is a new blue ocean of opportunities for Chinese companies, especially those in manufacturing and technology sectors," said Dean Li.

CKGSB Professor of Economics and Associate Dean Li Wei unveiled the school's new Chinese-language report, The New Chinese Playbook for Going Global. Grounded in extensive fieldwork in Southeast Asia, the report argues that Chinese companies are entering a new phase of globalization, shifting from exporting goods to building local operations, brands and partnerships in overseas markets.

"For companies, globalization isn't just about taking domestic experience abroad, but about building new, organic business models together with local communities, developing new adaptable capabilities, and helping solve more complex and difficult pain points," said Professor Li Wei.

The half-day forum also featured timely and diverse insights from ministers, ambassadors, and senior diplomats from ASEAN and European countries, and executives from companies including BASF, Merck, Shell, ATM Capital and WOOK. It was held with the support of the European, British, Swiss and Indonesian Chambers of Commerce in China.