Mr Xi told Mr Trump and his travelling party of American business leaders that “China’s door will only open wider” to US companies, who would “enjoy even broader prospects in China”.
One of the visiting executives, Jesen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, said the trade and investment talks between the two leaders were “very smooth”. Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla chief, described the meeting as “awesome”.
Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, told CNBC that the two sides might set up a “board of investment”, which would help shepherd Chinese proposals for investment in the US through the formal screening process.
In Britain, Jingye’s investment came with a promise to spend £1.2bn upgrading Scunthorpe’s four blast furnaces into net zero-friendly electric arc furnaces. But two years of negotiations between the Government and the company failed to bring the plan to fruition.
The company reported a cumulative loss of £350m up to the end of 2023, as it struggled with high costs and cut-price imports.
Jingye said it was losing £700,000 a day last March, and flagged a plan to shutter the blast furnaces. This prompted the Government to take control last April, passing an emergency legislation during a special Saturday sitting of Parliament.
The Government has already spent almost £420 million on running British Steel, which employs about 4,000 people, including 2,700 at the mill at Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire.
That bill will rise to more than £640m by next month, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). The NAO has estimated the Government may need to spend more than £1.5bn by 2028, even before any furnace renovation or compensation payment.
But the Government has countered that closing Scunthorpe could mean an £802m hit to the local economy during five years, costing 10,000 jobs. Ministers also want to retain and develop a sovereign domestic steelmaking capability.
“Maintaining domestic production capability for British Steel’s products is essential not only for economic growth but also for our national security and resilience,” Gareth Stace, the UK Steel boss, said on Thursday.
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