Press release 18 May 2006
For immediate release

Asian and European Business Leaders in Partnership for Sustainable Growth

The 10th Asia-Europe Business Forum on 10-11 September 2006 in Helsinki

The 10th Asia-Europe Business Forum (AEBF) will take place on 10-11 September 2006 in Helsinki, Finland.
The AEBF10 meeting marks the 10th anniversary of the cooperation between the business sectors of Asia and Europe. The previous conference was organized in October 2004 in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The Business Forum is part of the official ASEM process

The Business Forum formulates recommendations to the ASEM governments. The AEBF will take place during the Finnish Presidency of the European Union and it will be organized back-to-back with the 6th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM6) in Helsinki.

The themes for AEBF10 will be Globalisation, Competitiveness and Energy

Keynote speakers in the plenary sessions will be Mr Jorma Ollila, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Nokia, Mr Fu Chengyu, Chairman, CEO and Executive Director for China National Offshore Oil Corporation Ltd, Mr Pascal Lamy, Director General for the World Trade Organisation and Mr Haruhiko Kuroda, President for the Asian Development Bank.

In addition to plenary sessions there will be five parallel working groups. The topics will be trade, investment, financial services, ICT and infrastructure.

Several prominent business leaders will chair these working groups, among them Mr Joachim Bitterlich, Executive Vice President for Veolia Environnement, Mr KIM, President of International Cooperation Agency of Korea IT, Mr Juha Rantanen, CEO for Outokumpu and Mr Hans W. Reich, CEO for KfW Bankengruppe.

Approximately 300 - 400 business leaders from a wide range of industrial sectors in the Asian and European countries are expected to participate in the conference.

The organizer and further information

Confederation of Finnish Industries EK, the voice of Finnish business will organize the AEBF10 under the Chairmanship of Mr. Christoffer Taxell, President of EK.

An official AEBF website, www.aebf10.org has been opened.

Information in detail about the conference and the programme are below.

Also representatives for media will be given the opportunity to follow the plenary sessions of the conference. Information can be found at the AEBF website.

Press contacts may be made to filip.hamro-drotz@ek.fi.

Registration will be opened 1st of June in www.aebf10.org.

AEBF10 Brochure (pdf)

AEBF10 Draft Programme (pdf)

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