On the afternoon of May 26, when the 2020 NPC and CPPCC sessions were being held, CMEC’s Party Committee held the seminar for the central group of Party committee in the second quarter of 2020. The central group centred on General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important instructions on taking the normalized measures for epidemic prevention and control and promoting the resumption of work and production to put in place the work arrangement of SINOMACH’s first-quarter video conference for operation analysis and seize the opportunity to complete more than half of the tasks of financial indicators when entering the second half of the year. Members of CMEC’s leadership team, together with other senior executives and Party committee members, attended the meeting. Bai Shaotong, Party secretary and chairman of CMEC, presided over the meeting.

Fang Yanshui, deputy Party secretary and general manager of CMEC, delivered a speech, requiring that we need to have a clear understanding of the major impact of the pandemic on CMEC to made a judgement, timely adjust our business strategies, take more effective measures to increase revenue and cut expenditure, work together to tackle the difficulties, and make all-out efforts to complete the 2020 CMEC’s objectives. He focused on the possible major impact of the global pandemic on CMEC. By keeping abreast of the international and domestic markets, he made a judgement on the business operation faced by CMEC in the post-epidemic era and set the direction of the Company’s work.

He presented that it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the adverse impact of the covid-19 pandemic on CMEC. The global economic recession, economic weakness and shrinking demand have initially appeared, market-based uncertainties have further increased, and the overseas market environment is gradually worsening. The industry direction and the industrial chain are undergoing a shift. New technological infrastructure represented by AI, blockchain and cloud computing has become the mainstream. The construction of infrastructure in relevant countries has adjusted their focus on medical care, health, livelihood facilities, and grain production. As the international political landscape and geopolitics are changing rapidly, the market structure facing the company in the post-epidemic era will experience major changes.

Regarding how to foster new opportunities amid the crisis and resume work in the changes, Fang Yanshui stressed that effective measures should be taken to overcome the difficulties. First, we must stabilize the business fundamentals and make preparation for a long-term fight against the pandemic. First of all, we must boost confidence in addressing covid-19 scientifically, do everything in our power to reduce the impact of the pandemic, and do a good job in preventing and controlling the pandemic and resuming work and production. In particular, overseas project sites should collaborate with embassies and consulates to ensure the progress of projects while guaranteeing safety. Secondly, we must firmly bear in mind the business philosophy of “cash is king.” As the sufficient cash flow is the core of survival, we should control and use the cash flow. Second, the internal manage needs to be implemented strictly to improve quality and efficiency. We should firmly establish the awareness of tightening our belt, keep cutting the operating costs of enterprises through refined management, increase revenue and reduce expenditure, continuously streamline the corporation, and find ways to improve economic benefits. Third, we need to seek opportunities in the crisis to make achievements. We need to maintain a high degree of sensitivity, obtain relevant policies of countries stimulating the economy, follow up the policies issued by the Chinese government and financial institutions, understand the national strategic plan, map out the plan in advance, and realign ourselves with the market structure in the post-epidemic era. Fourth, we need to set our course in the post-epidemic era. We need to seize the market opportunity of localizing the global industrial chain to keep up with the trend of technological progress, judge the target market, and muster up efforts to seek improvements. Fifth, we need to grasp the opportunity to capture a share of the home market. We need to broaden our understanding of long term and complexity of the pandemic, grasp General Secretary Xi Jinping’s new development pattern where domestic and foreign markets can boost each other, utilize overseas experience and resources to promote the development of the domestic market and mobilize all resources to help future development in the way of reverse resource allocation. Sixth, we need to build up our strength to sharpen our competitiveness by following the values of socialist market economy. First of all, the window of reform and development brought about by the pandemic needs to be fully utilized to strengthen the specialization of business resources and heighten the relevant core competitiveness. Secondly, we should break through the bottleneck of localized development, deepen our understanding of the role of regional platforms, seize the opportunity of localization of the global industrial chain after the covid-19 pandemic, and build our overseas regional platforms into ones where young people's potential can be brought into full play. We should establish and improve a market-oriented mechanism for human resources, so that truly capable comrades can take up suitable positions through a range of ways of competitive recruitment, including “two-way” selection, “dual-way commitment” and “elimination of the last place.” By doing so, our competition awareness can be activated. Seventh, we need to make the utmost of the advantages of the platform to strengthen business collaboration. We should adopt a full-fledged business model through integration of resources and of industrial chain, strengthen vertical and horizontal coordination, and enhance cooperative capability to deepen the work. Eighth, we must fulfil responsibilities to ensure safe operation. We must firmly hold the bottom line of workplace safety by improving the emergency pre-plan, enhancing our capabilities to prevent all kinds of production accidents, and staying alert to overseas environmental changes caused by the pandemic.

Fang stressed that the year of 2020, the closing year of CMEC’s three-year development plan, initiates the preparation for the 14th Five-Year Plan. The pandemic has disrupted CMEC’s normal working pace, but it will eventually end. We should have a clear understanding of the changes made by the pandemic, weigh up risks dialectically, turn pressure into power, seize opportunities amid challenges, and work to recover losses, so as to continuously lay a solid foundation for CMEC’s high-quality development.

CMEC’s other leadership members, focusing on the discussion theme, their own work and Fang’s speech, made speeches on implementing CMEC’s development strategy, stabilizing business fundamentals, strengthening management, introducing an internal incentive scheme, maintaining business vitality, bolstering confidence in overcoming difficulties, keeping abreast with the core market, making more investment in science and technology, sharpening core competitiveness, adopting new approaches to development ideas, and adhering to the bottom-line thinking, respectively.

According to the speeches of other members, Bai Shaotong pointed out that all members of CMEC’s leadership team should centre around problems in production and operation, put forward constructive ideas, and make suggestions so as to achieve remarkable results. Chairman Bai emphasized that, amid the current changeable and complicated situation, we should conscientiously study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speeches at the national two sessions, unify our thinking, enhance confidence, conform to the development trend, and map out the overall development planning in accordance with the arrangements of the NPC and CPPCC sessions. First, we should deeply think about, analyze, and deal with the current situation, in a bid to make the phased prediction more accurate. Second, we need to focus on key work, further analyze crisis factors, strengthen management practices, and identify methods and measures to address the crisis. Third, we need to maintain the awareness of looking for opportunities and charting our course for development amid the pandemic and capture every potential opportunity in a realistic way. Fourth, we need to conduct in-depth front-line investigation to solve problems for those employees. Also, the research results of CMEC’s leadership team should be passed on to front-line employees, so as to create a dual-way communication channel and pool more resources to overcome difficulties.

Finally, Bai made further arrangements, putting forward requirements for the prevention and control of pandemic at home and abroad and overseas workplace safety.