Investment fund aims to help ease environment ills

A Capital, a leading private equity fund investing between Europe and China, launched the European Environment and Energy Fund in Beijing during the visit of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls to China.

The target size of the Fund is $500 million, and it intends to become a powerful investment platform for strategic partners and investors from China, France and the rest of Europe.

Outlining the rationale behind the new fund, Andr Loesekrug-Pietri, chairman of A Capital Group said: "Europe has world-leading R&D and innovative companies that lack scale due to fragmentation and low-growth markets. China has the market and the imperative need for these technologies, to tackle the massive challenges that it faces, in particular pollution, urbanization and clean energy needs."

The fund will invest in performing European companies with proven know-how and technology in the environment and energy sectors to help secure their position and intellectual property in China, which is the largest energy market of the world, which Loesekrug-Pietri says will also help address the most pressing environmental challenges China is facing as it accelerates its urbanization.

"We believe the fund is uniquely positioned to capture the best of both worlds: European know-how and Chinese scale, to the benefit of European companies and the solving of China's environmental issues."

The fund will focus on the following sectors: air quality and emissions, water quality, land remediation and waste treatment and recycling, energy efficiency and conservation, renewable energy, new materials and smart grids.

Joining the launch were China's largest State-owned firm in the environment sector, the China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group, as well as China's largest private company in the sector, GCL New Energy.

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing earlier in November last year China said it is plans to ensure its carbon emissions peak by 2030.

The fund is being launched as countries are ramping up their efforts to create a favorable environment ahead of the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in December, when it is hoped that a new treaty will be agreed on global climate change actions.

zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 01/31/2015 page8)