On Tuesday, 9 July 2019, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), in agreement with the European Lift Association (ELA), hosted a delegation of representatives of the regulatory bodies of the People's Republic of China, Mr. Zhang HongWei, Administration of Special Safety Supervision - SESA, State Administration of Market Regulation – SAMR and Mr. Qian Jian Xiong, Technology and Regulation Department, China Special Equipment Inspection and Research Institute.  European Commission officers from DG Grow (Mr. Cyrill Dirscherl, Mr. Bruno Standaert, Mr. Gordon Buhagiar and Ms Anna Saarela), as well as representative of the European Committee for Standardization (Mr. Esfandiar Gharibaan), contributed to the preparation and the discussions during the meeting. The meeting, opened by the EESC Secretary General, Gianluca Brunetti, was also attended by representatives of ELA (Mr. Roberto Zappa, ELA President, Mr. Jorge Ligüerre, ELA Board member and Mr. Luca Pezzini, ELA Secretary General). During the meeting it was emphasized that strengthening relations between Europe and China in such a critical area as standardisation is absolutely important and there are several on-going initiatives. For example, last April, during the first World Elevator Congress held in Langfang (China), China Elevator Association (CEA) and ELA signed a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation and set up various thematic working groups, which will continue in the coming months. Also during this visit by the Chinese delegation, CEN, CEN/TC 10, SESA, SAC/TC 196 and CEA agreed to set up a Joint Working Group (JWG) on "Standardization Technical Cooperation on Safety of Lifts and Escalators". The first meeting of the JWG is expected to be held in China in October/November. At the end of the meeting, everyone shared the importance of further strengthening the relationship between Europe and China, not only for the benefit of the specific industry sector (Lifts and Escalators) but clearly for the benefit of industry in general, on both sides.