With no podium or central area, all seats in the venue were allocated randomly by computer, and Chinese-English simultaneous interpretation was available in the whole course of the event.
Insightful and passionate, all speeches were about cutting-edge technologies of the world and delivered from a global perspective. Global CEOs of Syngenta, Pirelli, Mercuria made their presence in rostrums of three directions respectively.
The speeches of three sectors, material science, environmental science, and life science, embellished by special music perfectly combining Chinese and Western elements, were adeptly transited, compact but not stressed.
Participants, each wearing a LOGO of the event, enjoyed a “Feast of Thoughts” of international style, excited and moved.
On the evening of January 26, the ChemChina 2018 Annual Work Meeting was opened with “ChemChina Night”. This enterprise “Davos” forum established for sharing the highlights of the past year and the key work in the coming year will become a fixed event of the annual meeting of China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina). A different theme will be set up for each year. This year’s theme was “A New Era Beyond Glory”.
After the opening of the event by the Chinese folk song “Jasmine Flower” performed by such musical instruments as pipa, violin, guzheng, and bass, ChemChina Chairman Ren Jianxin walked out from over an audience of 500 people to deliver a passionate address.
Ren Jianxin noted, “Through a long period of endeavor, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new ear. Chinese economy has also entered a new era, transiting from a period of high-speed growth to a period of high-quality development. In the new era, innovation has become the primary power, coordination an endogenous characteristic, environmental protection a general characteristic, opening-up an inevitable path, and sharing the basic purpose. In the global competition of the new era, we should follow the trend and win initiatives. We must thoroughly implement the five concepts of development, upgrade ChemChina’s level of opening-up, and comprehensively improve ChemChina’s developmental quality.”
In his address, Ren proposed that “we have new partners in the new era”, “have new images in the new era”, “new accomplishments in the new era”, and “new dreams in the new era”, to express the understanding, vision, and action plans for the “new era” on behalf of all employees of ChemChina. Chairman Ren compared senior managers of ChemChina as captains of enterprises in the new era, from which he pointed out the purpose of the event, “Today, we’ve invited excellent captains of ChemChina with international navigation experience to share their successes and joys for us to learn from each other, draw blueprints, and calibrate navigation routes, so that the big ship of ChemChina will sail steadily for a long distance in the ocean of internationalization.”
In the sector of material science, Elkem AS CEO Helge Aasen, Qenos CEO Stephen Bell, and Bluestar CEO Michael Koenig delivered keynote speeches; TAL General Manager Ma Jinteng went on stage, and Bluestar Chairman and Party Secretary Hao Zhigang made comments. The speeches concluded in the performance of classical Chinese music, “Moonlight on the Spring River”.
In the sector of environmental science section, Mercuria Executive Director and Global Head of Trading Magid Shenouda, Pirelli Executive Vice President Giorgio Bruno, KraussMaffei CEO Frank Stieler, and ChemChina Petrochemical Co., Ltd and ChemChina (Singapore) Co., Ltd General Manager Wu Hong delivered keynote speeches; Mercuria Energy Group Senior Adviser Tao Haisu, Petrochemical Corporation General Manager Assistant and China Chemical (UK) General Manager Liu Qinghui rendered a speech, and REC CEO Steve Marc O'Neill came on stage for interaction; Petrochemical Corporation Chairman and Party Secretary Wang Dazhuang made a comment. The panel presentation ended with the performance of a piece of famous Chinese music, “Butterfly Lovers”.
In the sector of life science, Adisseo CEO Jean-Marc Dublanc, ADAMA President and CEO Chen Lichtenstein, and Syngenta CEO J.Erik Fyrwald delivered keynote speeches, guest speaker Carl delivered a speech, and China National Agrochemical Co., Ltd. Chairman and Party Secretary Chen Hongbo made a comment.
The event concluded successfully with “Nessun Dorma”, an aria in Turandot.
All people present noted that the “ChemChina Night” event was ingeniously designed with diversified and wonderful contents, which broadened their field of vision. The ideas and methods drawn from the event offered very good references for future work.