CER signs China co-operation agreement

The European Remanufacturing Council (CER) has signed an agreement with one of the new Chinese national demonstration bases for reman. During a meeting in Brussels which also involved DG GROW (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) and DG ENV (Environment), the signatories agreed “to co-operate to achieve the successful development of the demonstration base”. One part of the brand new Chinese development site has already been reserved for UK-based businesses - with an option to expand this later to any business based in the European Union.

The visit was planned to coincide with a circular economy agreement to be signed in Beijing in mid-July between the EU and China. CER director David Fitzsimons asked Chinese delegates about the recent reports of policy changes in support of reman in China. “We concluded the reforms did not address the elevated level of short term investment risk for remanufacturing specialists in China” he explains.

“Having said that…the learning-by-doing-culture in China will eventually succeed in creating world scale remanufacturing businesses and technical expertise. Reflecting this, we plan to maintain our relationship with the national demonstration bases in China to protect the interests of our members.” Meanwhile, the CER has released the ten research projects on which it believes the reman industry should concentrate. They include: electric vehicle battery reman; global trade barriers and solutions; reman liability; Blockchain for reman; legal definitions of ‘waste’ and other remanufacturing terms; and market assessment of reman certification marks.