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The German branch of the Qingdao Center for Business & Commerce was officially opened in Munich on June 23, according to Xinhuanet.com

The center will act as Qingdao’s European base of operations, in the hope of getting better economic reach into the continent. Its core aim is to promote mutual trade and investment cooperation between enterprises from Qingdao and Europe.

More than 50 business leaders and high-level politicians from Germany and Qingdao attended the ceremony.

The center will be headed up by Shen Lei, who remarked that it is only the fourth time for Qingdao to set up such a base of operations internationally, following Singapore, South Korea and the US.

Featuring a vast range of functions and services, the center will carry out investment and trade consultations, investigate European regulations and laws, promote talent as well as provide services for European experts working in Qingdao.

News from CHINADAILY.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court has accepted an appeal by Apple to review a ruling by the capital’s patent office ordering the company to halt the sales of its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in Beijing after finding the design too closely resembles a Chinese phone.

The Beijing Intellectual Property Office said in a statement on its website that it ordered Apple and a reseller of its products in Beijing, Beijing Zoomflight Communication Equipment Co, to stop selling the two iPhone models after it found they infringed upon the rights of a Shenzhen-based company.

A spokesman for the court said it had accepted Apple’s appeal to review the ruling, but it has not set a time for the hearing.

An Apple spokesman told AFP that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, as well as iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone SE models are “all available for sale today in China”.

“We appealed an administrative order from a regional patent tribunal in Beijing last month,  as a result the order has been stayed pending review by the Beijing IP Court,” the Apple spokesman said.

The complaint against Apple was filed by Shenzhen Baili Marketing Service Co, a small brand that designed a cellphone model called the 100 C.

Despite a number of differences between the 100C and the iPhone 6, “the differences are too tiny to be noticeable by average consumers, and thus it should be deemed that there is no apparent difference between the two phone models”, according to a verdict by the Beijing patent tribunal.

The tribunal made its ruling in May, and it was reported by Chinese media recently.

The IP dispute is the latest faced by Apple over the design of its products in China, its second-largest market after the Americas.

The company lost a four-year fight against a Beijing leather products maker in May after the Beijing Municipal High People’s Court ruled in favor of Xintong Tiandi Technology, which sells a number of leather products such as smartphone cases and handbags under the name “iphone”.

News from Chinadaily.

China will take measures to provide more opportunities for investors from home and broad, said Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, pledging to enhance law enforcement efforts to protect intellectual property rights.

Li made the remarks when attending the meeting of the China-German Economic AdvisoryCommittee together with his German counterpart Angela Merkel Monday afternoon at theGreat Hall of the People in Beijing.

China has taken great steps forward in the reform and opening up in the past three decades,Li told the Chinese and German entrepreneurs present at the meeting.

“In the future, China will continue to ease market access and take more measures to providemore and greater opportunities for investors from home and abroad,” he said, encouragingGermany to make joint efforts with China.

China will continue to improve the intellectual property rights protection system, enhance lawenforcement efforts and better protect the rights of enterprises, researchers and the public inthe hope of releasing their creative powers and entrepreneurship so as to help advance thetransformation and upgrading of China’s economy, Li said.

Chairmen and general managers from Siemens AG, Thyssenkrupp AG, ALBA Group, CLAASKGaA and China Railway, CRRC Corporation Limited, Baosteel Group gave their views andsuggestions at the meeting on industrial cooperation including intelligent manufacturing,cooperation on third-party markets and trade and investment environment.

Hailing the discussion “pragmatic, pointed and forward-looking,” Li said the advisorycommittee plays an important role in bilateral cooperation.

He called on the committee to continue to strengthen exchange of views and break theinformation asymmetry in order to better accommodate the overall situation of the China-German cooperation.

On the issue of production capacity surplus in some industries, Li said it is caused by weakrecovery of the world economy and should be addressed by joint efforts from all countries.

“It is unreasonable to blame a certain country or aspect for this. It will harm others withoutbenefit to oneself if some countries trigger a trade war,” Li warned.

He urged all countries to address the challenges and preclude risks with market means in acooperative spirit so as to defend trade liberalization.
Merkel, for her part, said the advisory committee is an effective mechanism to boostGermany-China economic cooperation.

She said she had in-depth discussion with Li on issues of common concern to both countries’businesses and reached many agreements during the consultation.

She called on both sides to give full play to the role of the committee to enhance dialogue andexpand cooperation.

Representatives of the entrepreneurs expressed their hopes of grasping the opportunities ofthe integration between the strategies of “Made in China 2025” and “Industry 4.0,” lookingforward to a more equal and open market environment created by both governments.

Also on Monday afternoon, Li and Merkel attended the eighth forum on China-Germanyeconomic and technological cooperation co-sponsored by China’s National Development andReform Commission and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy at theGreat Hall of the People.

Stressing that China will open wider to the outside world, Li said German companies andcompanies from other countries will see more opportunities in China especially in the area ofnew economy.

“No matter a company is a joint venture or a wholly foreign owned enterprise, as long as it isregistered in China, it will be treated equally,” Li told the forum attended by more than 800business representatives from both countries.

With the expansion of China-Germany cooperation, the possibility of economic and tradefrictions between the two is increasing, yet such a ratio in the overall mainstream cooperationwill be decreasing, said Li.

Should both sides bear the overall situation in mind and equally open to each other, the twocountries will enhance mutual understanding and properly solve differences, he said.

Calling Germany and China “important export markets of each other and partners of creationand research and development,” Merkel said the two sides need to work together to wellsynergize strategies, explore new potentials and expand third-party markets so as to open upa new field of bilateral cooperation.

Merkel was on her ninth visit to China in the office of German Chancellor.

Li and Merkel held the fourth round of intergovernmental consultation on Monday. She paid a visit to Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning province on Tuesday before ending her three-day trip.

Global brands lose advantage in China

For the first time in China, local Chinese brands are equal to international brands in a measurement index- meaning they are now in many ways perceived as equally competitive, new research found.

According to advertising giant WPP and its market research unit Millward Brown, both multinationals and local Chinese brands score 100 on the metric of Brand Power — the BrandZ measurement of brand equity.

But Chinese brands have the advantage of upward momentum, while international brands are weakening, it said. In 2010, multinationals scored 115, while Chinese brands scored only 89.

A decade ago, international brands were synonymous with quality in the minds of certain Chinese consumers. They offered status and bling, while local brands could only aspire to being”good enough”.

Uncertainty consumers in China once felt toward domestic products is gone. Local brands are challenging and beating global competition and consumers increasingly believe they are comparable, according to Millward Brown.

The total value of BrandZ 2016 top 100 most valuable Chinese brands rose 13 percent in 2015,despite the economic slowdown, as consumers remain confident in their spending and optimistic about living a better life, it said.

Millward Brown said that Chinese brands are doing a better job than their global rivals, in providing quality and value and leveraging the right channels to make its products available to Chinese consumers.

As the information explosion in China makes people more sophisticated, they demand more choice as well as better quality and value. This presents an opportunity for new, niche brands to come onto the market — and again, local brands are taking the lead, it said.

Chinese brands are also doing better in catching the speed of the mobile wave. China is the most dynamic market in the world in terms of mobile use. The use of cash and credit cards is already perceived as outdated.

In addition, Chinese brands invest more heavily in media than their international counterparts.The top 10 investors on the TV channel CCTV, for example, are all local brands apart from Coca-Cola.

Chinese companies are learning how to develop unique, innovative brands. If international brands can’t speed up and change their approach they risk missing the wave, and being replaced, it added.

News come from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn.