The FPC and the Open University's International Development and Innovation, Knowledge and Development Centres, in partnership with Lovells, hosted a one-day conference on Friday 21 November which explored the impact of commodities on development in Africa and China. The event sought to illuminate the complex and intricate relationships that constitute the ever-evolving engagement between the People's Republic of China and the continent of Africa. Energy, minerals and agricultural commodities provided a unique and topical framework through which to explore emerging Africa-China relations.

If you would like to receive a copy of the Conference report when it is published in spring 2009, please send your details by email to: events@fpc.org.uk.

Read more…

Download Conference programme & Concept note - 'Going for Growth' (120 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Wednesday 7th May 2008, 3-5pm

Speakers:

•Salvatore Gabola, Director of Global Stakeholder Relations, The Coca-Cola Company

•Liza Lort-Phillips, Associate Director, Corporate Citizenship

•Graham Baxter, Director,Responsible Business Solutions International Business Leaders Forum(IBLF)

•Sumi Dhanarajan, Co-head,Private Sector Team, Policy Department Oxfam

The Foreign Policy Centre, in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain, presented the third seminar in the 'CSR in Emerging Markets' series on Wed 7 May at Portcullis House. The seminar examined CSR in emerging markets with a focus on marketplace practices, including issues such as consumer relations, ethical trade and responsible investment, and wealth creation. The speakers explored these themes from both business and civil society perspectives.

This event was held in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain

Download Invitation (90 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Monday 10th March 2008, 3pm to 5pm

Venue: Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Bridge Street, London, SW1A 2LW

Speakers:

• Salvatore Gabola, Director of Worldwide Stakeholder Relations, The Coca-Cola Company
• Daniel Graymore, Team Leader, Business Alliance Team, Department for International Development
• Daniel Litvin, Director, Critical Resource Strategy & Analysis
• Stephen Twigg (Chair), Director, The Foreign Policy Centre

About this event:

At this event, the Foreign Policy Centre launched a major project on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain. The project will explore the role of multinational corporations' CSR practices in emerging markets in the areas of labour standards, marketplace practices, and the environment. With an initial background paper, this launch seminar reviewed recent trends in multinationals' CSR practices, defined the latest debate on CSR, and established the context for the following three seminars which will form part of this project.

This event was held in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain.

Download the initial background paper (140 kilobyte PDF)

By Verity Robins.

China has woken up to its drug problem, but it is failing woefully in trying to tackle it. Nestled between two major heroin-producing regions, the Golden Triangle (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam) and the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran), China has long been a transit path for drugs headed toward the rest of the world. Along an ever-expanding network of routes that lead to China's international seaports, domestic heroin use is soaring. No longer just a transit country, it now has a sizable user population of its own. The rise in domestic heroin addiction has had disastrous social consequences, with an increase in Chinese drug cultivation and organised criminal activity, as well as a rise in intravenous drug use and a spiralling HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Full text 

By Thiago de Aragao.

There are those who wanted to discuss which would be most important for Brazilian foreign policy: a visit of Barack Obama to Brazil or a visit by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to China.

Full text 

By Dr Tim Summers.

Tim Summers explores recent economic transformation in China and makes the case for greater engagement with the countries less well-known regions beyond traditional investment markets.

Download Engaging with Inland China (290 kilobyte PDF)

Joshua Cooper Ramo

Supported by Hill & Knowlton

February 2007

Download Brand China (260 kilobyte PDF)

In this new report, from the author of the widely discussed paper 'The Beijing Consensus', Ramo argues that China's national image, and the misalignment between China's image of itself and how it is viewed by the rest of the world, may be its greatest strategic threat. It argues that alongside its other reforms, China needs a 'fifth transition' if the trust and understanding necessary for the next stage of its development are to be achieved.

This paper has been kindly supported by Hill & Knowlton.

Christopher J Forster

April 2006

Download China's Secret Weapon (320 kilobyte PDF)

Preface by Lord Charles Powell of Bayswater

The Wall Street Journal reported recently how foreign-invested R&D centres in China have almost quadrupled to 750 over the last four years. The Foreign Policy Centre report bears this out with statistics showing that China is now ranked third in the world for total R&D spending. It estimates that by 2010 China will have the same number of science and engineering graduates as the United States. The idea that China is a sweat-shop economy is very dated. Instead it is a growing challenge to the previously comfortable technological lead of the Western countries.

Further information 

Seema Desai

January 2006

Download the report (250 kilobyte PDF)

As the centre of gravity in the world's economy continues to move east, it appears increasingly anachronistic that the only Asian country represented at the G8 table is Japan, by all accounts a stagnating economic and political power in the world. The time is approaching for China to be invited to be a full member of the G8, and for the new G9 or G10 (if India is included) to focus on its central objective: to preside over and guide the world's economy.

Further information 

The FPC and the Open University's International Development and Innovation, Knowledge and Development Centres, in partnership with Lovells, hosted a one-day conference on Friday 21 November which explored the impact of commodities on development in Africa and China. The event sought to illuminate the complex and intricate relationships that constitute the ever-evolving engagement between the People's Republic of China and the continent of Africa. Energy, minerals and agricultural commodities provided a unique and topical framework through which to explore emerging Africa-China relations.

If you would like to receive a copy of the Conference report when it is published in spring 2009, please send your details by email to: events@fpc.org.uk.

Read more…

Download Conference programme & Concept note - 'Going for Growth' (120 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Wednesday 7th May 2008, 3-5pm

Speakers:

•Salvatore Gabola, Director of Global Stakeholder Relations, The Coca-Cola Company

•Liza Lort-Phillips, Associate Director, Corporate Citizenship

•Graham Baxter, Director,Responsible Business Solutions International Business Leaders Forum(IBLF)

•Sumi Dhanarajan, Co-head,Private Sector Team, Policy Department Oxfam

The Foreign Policy Centre, in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain, presented the third seminar in the 'CSR in Emerging Markets' series on Wed 7 May at Portcullis House. The seminar examined CSR in emerging markets with a focus on marketplace practices, including issues such as consumer relations, ethical trade and responsible investment, and wealth creation. The speakers explored these themes from both business and civil society perspectives.

This event was held in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain

Download Invitation (90 kilobyte PDF)

Date: Monday 10th March 2008, 3pm to 5pm

Venue: Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Bridge Street, London, SW1A 2LW

Speakers:

• Salvatore Gabola, Director of Worldwide Stakeholder Relations, The Coca-Cola Company
• Daniel Graymore, Team Leader, Business Alliance Team, Department for International Development
• Daniel Litvin, Director, Critical Resource Strategy & Analysis
• Stephen Twigg (Chair), Director, The Foreign Policy Centre

About this event:

At this event, the Foreign Policy Centre launched a major project on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain. The project will explore the role of multinational corporations' CSR practices in emerging markets in the areas of labour standards, marketplace practices, and the environment. With an initial background paper, this launch seminar reviewed recent trends in multinationals' CSR practices, defined the latest debate on CSR, and established the context for the following three seminars which will form part of this project.

This event was held in association with Coca-Cola Great Britain.

Download the initial background paper (140 kilobyte PDF)