China is seeking to hold a meeting between President Xi Jinping and global chief executives this month, as scores of international business leaders from Citadel’s Ken Griffin to HSBC’s new CEO Georges Elhedery are expected to gather in Beijing for an annual summit.
Authorities in Beijing have approached chief executives planning to attend the China Development Forum, the country’s premier business assembly, which is held each spring in Beijing. The potential meeting with Xi would take place on March 28, following the CDF, said people familiar with the matter.
The meeting and list of invitees was still being negotiated, the people said, as many CEOs were reluctant to wait around in Beijing following the CDF, which will be held on March 23 and 24.
Some of those invited to participate in the Xi meeting, which is expected to be attended by about 20 or more business leaders, may cancel their attendance at the CDF, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
About 72 global chief executives are on an initial list of attendees for the CDF, the people said. They include Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone, Albert Bourla of Pfizer, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, Evan Greenberg of Chubb, Aramco’s Amin H Nasser, Masahiro Kihara of Mizuho, Bill Winters of Standard Chartered, Patrick Pouyanné from Total and Vincent Clerc of AP Møller-Maersk.
The planned Xi meeting comes as Beijing is trying to stabilise falling foreign investment flows into the world’s second-largest economy as it grapples with a years-long property sector crisis and weak investor and consumer sentiment.
But international companies complain that barriers to market access in China, persistent deflation and intense competition from domestic rivals are eating away at their margins.
Beijing is also keen for the support of international business leaders, many of whom have invested heavily in China, as it fends off Donald Trump’s increasingly hostile trade policy and tariffs. The US president has imposed additional tariffs of 20 per cent on Chinese exports, prompting Beijing to retaliate this week with measures targeting American farm goods.
Xi held a surprise meeting with US business leaders last year after the CDF, when he met a group of about 20 CEOs at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the sprawling political complex on Tiananmen Square.
The Chinese president told that group, which included Greenberg, Schwarzman, Amon, Brian Sikes of Cargill, Bill Hornbuckle of MGM Resorts and John Thornton of Barrick Gold as well as Steve Orlins of the National Committee on US-China Relations that Beijing remained committed to reform.
The CEOs being courted for this year’s meeting, however, are expected to come from a wider range of countries, said one person familiar with the matter, including the UK and Europe.
The Financial Times reported this week that Montana senator Steve Daines, who is planning to travel to China for the CDF, was trying to get Trump to designate him as a special enjoy to China to facilitate a meeting with Xi.
After publication, his office denied that he was pushing for the designation.
China’s foreign affairs ministry said it “did not have any information” on a Xi meeting with CEOs.
