On April 6, 2023, when French President Macron led an economic and trade delegation to visit China, the fifth meeting of the Sino-French Entrepreneurs Committee was held in the Great Hall of the People. During the meeting, representatives of Chinese and French enterprises conducted discussions on the two topics of jointly coping with global challenges and cooperating to promote prosperity and development, and put forward suggestions on deepening Sino-French economic and trade cooperation. Participating companies expressed that they will further seize the new opportunities of China's promotion of high-quality development, jointly maintain the stability and smoothness of the supply chains of China-France and China-Europe industrial chains, and deepen their cooperation in nuclear energy, aviation, pharmaceuticals, finance, agriculture and food, innovation, consumption, and new energy. We will jointly write a new chapter of Sino-French economic and trade cooperation at a new starting point.

After the closing ceremony of the meeting, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire jointly attended the signing ceremony of the Sino-French business agreement. 36 companies from both sides signed 18 cooperation agreements in the fields of green, innovation, aviation and new energy. Among them, China Railway Shanghai Engineering Bureau, Wanhua Chemical Group and Suez Group, under the joint witness of the ministers of the two countries, formally signed a cooperation agreement on the Penglai seawater desalination project to further deepen the cooperation between the three parties in the field of environmental protection.

The three partners will seize the opportunity, give full play to their respective advantages, focus on fully communicating, negotiating and cooperating in the field of seawater desalination, further strengthen information sharing, resource integration and industrial linkage, realize complementary advantages, and promote common development. At the same time, the three parties will take the opportunity of the Penglai seawater desalination project to continue to develop the comprehensive utilization technology of seawater desalination, strengthen technical exchanges and cooperation, practice the green development strategy, jointly build the Belt and Road, and help high-level opening up.

The Penglai seawater desalination project is an EPC general contracting project won by the China Railway Shanghai Engineering Bureau as the lead party, and the French Suez Group and other companies. The project is located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Hairun North Road and Pengdian North Road, Penglai District, Yantai City, Shandong Province. The planned land area is 56,000 square meters and the building area is 23,000 square meters. It mainly includes water intake and dosing, coagulation and sedimentation, filtration, and sludge treatment There are 20 buildings (structures) in six areas, including product water, power transformation and distribution.

The water source of the Penglai seawater desalination project is seawater cooled by the circulation system near the power plant. Compared with the process of taking water directly from seawater, the seawater "heated" by the direct cooling system can save the power consumption of the reverse osmosis process and effectively reduce carbon emissions. Protect the ecological environment while saving fresh water resources, and help Wanhua Chemical Group and its industrial partners achieve green transformation and upgradinEditor/Ma Xue