On 14 May 2010, a day-long CSR training seminar for public and private sector representatives was held in the city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. The training seminar, which was jointly organized by the Wenzhou Economic and Trade Commission, the Sino-German CSR Project, and the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), was attended by 78 people from 47 private enterprises, as well as 20 officials from Wenzhou City and district-level economic and trade departments. Each of Wenzhou’s 10 districts and its one economic zone were represented at the event.

Ms Guojing, Project Officer from MOFCOM, and Mr. Tang Chun, Deputy Director of the Wenzhou Economic and Trade Commission, provided opening remarks, Mr. Tang underlining Wenzhou’s commitment to CSR and introducing its efforts in establishing a government-wide CSR promotion team in December 2008, and drafting the Wenzhou CSR Evaluation System in 2009.

Mr. Rolf Dietmar, Director, and Mr. Gao Baoyu, Senior Technical Advisor, of the Sino-German CSR Project, introduced CSR concepts, trends and business cases to those in attendance and Mr. Yefong, Director of the Wenzhou Hi-tech Application Research Institute, presented the Wenzhou CSR Evaluation System. Other speakers included Mr. Li Jingwei, China Representative of BSCI, and Ms. Yu Xianrong, Project Coordinator at the Sino-German CSR Project, who introduced the BSCI Code of Conduct and provided an overview of public-private partnership project models, respectively.

The seminar successfully marked a renewal in local efforts to further implement CSR in Wenzhou and raised awareness on key CSR issues among business leaders and government officials.