In the end of July Asia Research Centre hosted a delegation of high-ranked Chinese executives in relation to the five-year long China Executive Leadership Programme, which CBS has developed in collaboration with Cambridge University. This year's program involved 30 executives from China's biggest companies as well as representatives from the Organisational Department of the Central Committee, including Senior Vice Minister, Zhang Jinan. The program is part of China's aim of further developing its biggest Chinese companies - the so-called "national champions" - into global competitors alongside the biggest western multinational companies.

The delegation arrived in Copenhagen after a two-week stay at Cambridge University, where they had received lectures by prominent British professors and participated in strategic sessions with the CEOs of western multinational companies such as Nokia, Anglo-American, BP, HSBC, Vodafone, Ernest & Young, Morgan Stanley, ect. At CBS the delegation participated in lectures held by professors Uffe Østergaard, Steen Thomsen, and Ari Kokko, as well as former Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs, Mogens Lykketoft, who gave a talk on the Danish and the Swedish welfare model and Nordic corporate governance. Further, the top-management of the A.P. Moller-Maersk group was hosting a strategic session on shipping, oil and gas extraction, and Maersk's engagement in China. Finally, the program was comprised of a reception at City Hall and a meeting with Minister of Interior and Health, Bertel Haarder.

Thirteen of the Chinese companies can be found on the Fortune 500 list of the world's biggest. Over the past five years all 34 Chinese Fortune 500 companies have visited CBS, including financial institutions such as Bank of China, China Construction Bank and this year China Agricultural Bank, which has just issued an IPO exceeding $20 billion.

The Danish host of the program, ARC's director, Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard, states that the program offers invaluable connections to the top of the Chinese corporate sector and that it will undoubtedly have a very beneficial effect on Danish-Chinese relations.