Employees work at the construction site of the Jakarta-Bandung railway, Indonesia's first high-speed rail project, in March. It is being built by Chinese companies. [Photo/Xinhua]
Experts: Boosting cooperation, more opening-up both overriding trends
Despite the impact from COVID-19, economic and trade cooperation between China and economies involved in the Belt and Road Initiative has shown strong resilience, demonstrating China's firm commitment to global cooperation and sustainable recovery, experts and business leaders said.
In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2021 via video link, President Xi Jinping said that the BRI is a public road open to all, and all interested countries are welcome aboard to take part in the cooperation and share in its benefits.
China will continue to work with other parties in high-quality BRI cooperation, said Xi, adding that efforts will be made to build a closer partnership for cooperation in health, connectivity, green development, openness and inclusiveness.
The nation had signed 206 BRI cooperation documents with 140 countries and 32 international organizations as of June, covering areas like connectivity, investment, trade, finance, science and technology along with cultural and people-to-people exchanges, according to the 2021 report of China's Trade and Investment Cooperation Under the Belt and Road Initiative. The report was released in August by the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, an affiliate of the Ministry of Commerce.
Zhang Wei, CAITEC vice-president, said cooperation and opening-up remain the world's overriding trends alongside addressing uneven global economic recovery and development, and persistent challenges in the environment, climate, energy and regional security.
"Following the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, China will continue to put into practice the philosophy of open, green and clean cooperation and make the Belt and Road cooperation high-standard, people-centric and sustainable,"Zhang said.
According to Bai Ming, deputy director of the international market research department at CAITEC, win-win cooperation and rising development opportunities are the hallmarks of the BRI.
China and participating countries have constantly improved multilateral and regional cooperation mechanisms to deliver down-to-earth benefits of development to people over the years, Bai said, adding that is the fundamental reason behind the BRI's growing popularity among an increasing number of countries since it was proposed in 2013.
"Through the BRI, countries and regions are able to further tap each other's potential in trade and investment, based on the principle of achieving shared growth through dialogue and collaboration," he said, adding that the spirit of the BRI is peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit.
The National Development and Reform Commission said first-half trade in goods between China and BRI economies surged by 37.9 percent year-on-year to $824.55 billion. China's nonfinancial direct investment in BRI-related economies was $9.58 billion during the period, up 18 percent year-on-year, while project contracts signed stood at $39.35 billion, 10.6 percent higher.
The China-Europe Railway Express freight train service handled 7,377 trips, up 43 percent year-on-year, and carried about 707,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers of goods during the January-June period, said China State Railway Group Co Ltd.
The CAITEC report showed goods trade and trade in services between China and BRI economies amounted to $1.35 trillion and $84.47 billion in 2020, respectively. From 2013 to 2020, accumulated trade volume of goods between China and BRI economies reached $9.2 trillion.
Against the 35 percent year-on-year decline in global foreign direct investment last year, Chinese investors made direct investment of $18.61 billion in 58 BRI economies in 2020, accounting for 14 percent of the total investment amount over the same period, and 0.3 percentage point higher than the share a year ago.
Port of Piraeus, a major sea port in Athens, Greece, is operated by China COSCO Shipping Corp, and has become one of the world's fastest-growing container ports. [Photo/Xinhua]
In 2020, China and BRI-related countries worked hard to jointly advance infrastructure connectivity in an overall unfavorable environment. Many landmark Belt and Road projects achieved steady progress and substantive results, and "Constructed by China" has shown a strong brand effect in international cooperation, the report said.
China signed project contracts worth $141.46 billion with BRI economies in 2020, compared with $71.57 billion in 2013, registering an average annual growth rate of 10.2 percent. The completed turnover increased from $65.4 billion to $91.12 billion, reporting an average annual growth rate of 4.9 percent, the report stated.
Li Dongchun, director of the overseas business unit of Liugong Machinery Co Ltd, a Liuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region-based machinery manufacturer, said the company has seen drastic growth in overseas business in recent years, thanks to rapidly growing BRI trade and economic cooperation.
The company's overseas sales of road construction equipment reached a record high of 600 units in the first half, surging 68 percent year-on-year.
Following the establishment of its Asia-Pacific headquarters in 2011 in Singapore, and a regional after-sales service center for the ASEAN region and the wider area of Asia-Pacific, the company set up a subsidiary in 2019 in Indonesia to focus on both trading and manufacturing in the country and further tap business opportunities in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership region, as it believes the RCEP will significantly improve facilitation and liberalization of trade and investment in the area.
Improvements in connectivity between China and BRI economies have provided better support for the company's overseas operations, and soaring product demand from overseas, especially since 2016, is mainly due to a growing number of Chinese companies' overseas projects, as well as the increase in local appetite for infrastructure improvement, Li said.
The report highlighted the signing of the RCEP agreement last year, saying it will unlock huge market potential and inject strong impetus into regional and global growth.
With the RCEP, a negative-list approach will open up more investment sectors. Overall, liberalization of trade in goods is over 90 percent, and higher-level rules are adopted in trade facilitation, intellectual property rights protection, competition policy and government procurement.
The CAITEC report also stressed contributions from cross-border e-commerce to promote the circulation of supplies of contagion prevention materials and daily necessities in 2020.
The pandemic hurt traditional service sectors like tourism and catering hard. However, the online economy represented by door-to-door deliveries and online shopping has grown rapidly.
Consumption online is thriving as more consumers and sellers use e-commerce platforms to "buy globally" and "sell globally" at home, the report said.
However, despite the growth in overseas demand, challenges remain for Chinese companies due to pandemic uncertainty, said Li of Liugong Machinery.
"Prolonged payment schedules, restrictions on people flows and logistic disruptions all add difficulties to overseas operations of Chinese machinery manufacturers," he said.
Othman Jerandi, Tunisia's minister of foreign affairs, migration and Tunisians abroad, said via video link during the opening ceremony of the Fifth China-Arab States Expo that the BRI will bring new opportunities for economic and trade cooperation to countries and regions involved in the BRI, including Tunisia. The expo opened in Yinchuan, capital of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, on Aug 19 and closed on Aug 22.
The building of the BRI requires joint efforts from all parties, he said.
Tunisia is looking forward to strengthening cooperation with China, he added.
