Is China on track to become the world’s first Electrostate— an economy where electricity, not fuels, is the backbone of growth? Since 2000, electricity demand has risen more than six-fold, and China now leads globally across clean tech development, manufacturing, and deployment — from EVs and batteries to solar, grids, and hydrogen. In 2025, all incremental electricity demand was met by renewables, while coal-fired generation declined.

China is rapidly re-engineering its entire energy system around electricity, renewables, grids, and hydrogen — with profound implications for costs, competitiveness, and geopolitics.

Together with SEB, this seminar cuts through the noise to assess:

• How China electrified so fast– and why it matters

• Why this is about power, not just climate: energy security, industrial leadership, and cost dominance

• What this means for European companies in a world where cheap energy drives competitiveness

This is not advocacy. It is about understanding a structural shift that is already reshaping global markets.

Speakers:

Urban Josefsson is General Manager of SEB Hong Kong. Based in Hong Kong since 2021, he brings deep experience from senior leadership roles in fixed income and markets, with a career spanning global trading, sales and institutional client coverage. He offers a capital-markets and competitiveness lens on how China’s rapid electrification and clean-tech scale are reshaping industrial economics, energy security and global investment flows. 

Erik Halldén is Sustainability Advisor, Asia at SEB, based in Hong Kong. He has worked across Greater China since 2018 in corporate banking and sustainable finance, and in sustainability roles within global supply chains. He focuses on transition themes most relevant to European companies—bringing practical insight into China’s electrification pathway, clean-tech value chains and the implications for cost and competitiveness.