Sixth High-Level EU-China Seminar on regional policy co-operation

The Sixth High-Level EU-China Seminar on regional policy co-operation looked at the issue of regional disparities and the governance and co-ordination of regional policy in the EU and China, and exchanged views on regional policy experiences. The seminar presented as well the main outcomes of a major joint study on regional policies which compares aspects of regional policy in China with cohesion policy in the European Union to assess their potential to speed the economic growth of regions which are lagging behind. A specific session was devoted to the multi-level governance of regional policy, a system by which the responsibility for policy design and implementation is distributed between different levels of government and special-purpose local institutions(private associations, joint local authority bodies, cooperation across national borders, public-private partnerships). Last session presented an overview of the results of the programmes carried out in priority areas both in EU and China (EU convergence regions and Chinese bloc areas) as well as of the regional strategies