Insight: Chinese President Xi Jinping landed in France on Sunday for his first trip to Europe in five years. Top of the agenda was a China-France-EU trilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Some headway was made on key issues, with Xi calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Paris Summer Olympics. He also agreed to lift provisional tariffs on French cognac exports, which were proposed earlier this year when the EU launched its anti-subsidy probe into Chinese EVs.
Impact: Chinese exports of EVs into Europe remain a sticky topic, though France seems to be having some success securing Chinese investment while protecting its own technologies and interests. The French government gave the thumbs up to Chinese EV giant BYD opening plants in France – a sign of goodwill and a move towards a more integrated global EV supply chain. In tandem, it also signed a ‘strategic sector contract’ with French business groups to achieve a fourfold increase in the sale of all-electric vehicles to 800,000 a year by 2027. Could homegrown French brands become formidable competitors to China’s EV giants? The race is on.