News
Eight Actions Advance "Belt and Road" Benefits Globally
From January to August this year, China-Europe freight trains have made a cumulative total of 13,056 trips, transporting 1.399 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of cargo, representing year-on-year increases of 12% and 11%, respectively. The types of goods transported by China-Europe freight trains have reached over 50,000 varieties across 53 major categories, with the comprehensive heavy container rate remaining steadily at 100%. Since October 2023, China has signed new e-commerce cooperation memoranda with Serbia, Bahrain, and Tajikistan, expanding the "Silk Road E-commerce" partner countries to 33. On October 15th, Xinhua News Agency's National Think Tank released a think tank report titled "Eight Actions Lay a Good Foundation for a New Decade of High-Quality Joint Construction of the 'Belt and Road'" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), with a series of figures becoming a strong portrayal of the good start of a new decade of high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road."
As stated in the report, over the past year since China announced its support for the eight actions for high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road," with the joint efforts of the participating countries, the eight actions have been steadily promoted, achieving remarkable results. The joint construction of the "Belt and Road" is increasingly gathering global consensus, facing significant development opportunities, and can fully become the ballast stone for building an open world economy, the engine for promoting the common development of all countries, and the accelerator for achieving the modernization of the world.
Advertisement
Zhang Xiaotao, Dean of the School of International Economics and Trade at Central University of Finance and Economics, said in an interview with a reporter from the Economic Reference News that as the "Belt and Road" initiative deepens and becomes more practical, and the eight actions continue to be promoted, the path of economic and trade investment among participating countries has also become more unobstructed. Building a three-dimensional interconnected network of the "Belt and Road"; supporting the construction of an open world economy; carrying out practical cooperation; promoting green development; promoting scientific and technological innovation; supporting private exchanges; building a clean road; and improving the international cooperation mechanism of the "Belt and Road" - many of the eight actions for high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" are related to economic and trade investment. The vitality of economic and trade investment among participating countries is an important driving force for the development of the world economy.
This driving effect is perceptible. Recently, the "Pes" ship, loaded with more than 2,000 tons of cargo, slowly left the Zhoushan Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone wharf, marking the successful maiden voyage of the "Zhoushan-Guyana, Suriname" route of the Zhoushan Port Comprehensive Bonded Zone wharf. The newly opened "Zhoushan-Guyana, Suriname" route is the first direct route from Zhejiang Province to Guyana.
"In the past, containers and general cargo from Yiwu to Guyana and Suriname needed to be transshipped abroad, with a voyage of more than 100 days," said Xu Chi, Assistant General Manager of Zhoushan Port Comprehensive Free Trade Zone Wharf Co., Ltd. "The opening of the new route will shorten the voyage to about 45 days, significantly reducing the logistics costs for enterprises, and also providing production and living material support for Chinese-funded enterprises' various infrastructure projects in Guyana, Suriname, and other regions, better serving the joint construction of the 'Belt and Road'."
Looking at "Silk Road E-commerce," in the construction of the Digital Silk Road, digital service trade and digital e-commerce are showing rapid development trends. In the first half of 2024, the scale of China's service imports and exports that can be delivered digitally reached 14.2 trillion yuan, and the cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 12.2 trillion yuan, both setting historical highs, bringing a broad new space for participating countries.
In late September, at the third Global Digital Trade Expo held in Hangzhou, China, more than 30,000 professional buyers registered to attend, including more than 6,000 international buyers. The Expo specially set up a Silk Road E-commerce area, held a "Silk Road E-commerce Day," docked Silk Road E-commerce cooperation resources, and established a "Silk Road Cloud Products" recommendation week product area for main guest countries such as Kazakhstan and Thailand. In the same month, the Jiangsu Central Asia Center was officially inaugurated in Nanjing, which will take the Silk Road E-commerce center as an important business section, managing Jiangsu's production bases, warehouses, and logistics transportation with digital means.
Looking at the latest data, in the first three quarters of this year, China's imports and exports to countries participating in the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" reached 15.21 trillion yuan, with a growth of 6.3%, and the proportion increased to 47.1%; in the first eight months, Chinese enterprises newly signed contract amounts for contracted engineering projects in countries participating in the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" reached 123.21 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 18.8%; at the ongoing 136th Canton Fair, buyers from countries participating in the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" can be seen everywhere...
Looking to the future, the creation of "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation pilot zones, negotiating free trade agreements and investment protection agreements with more countries, actively comparing with international high-standard economic and trade rules, and further promoting cross-border service trade and high-level opening of investment and other measures will continue to be steadily promoted.
Zhang Xiaotao believes that with the steady promotion of the eight actions, hard connections such as China-Europe freight trains will be more improved, and soft connections such as rules and systems will be smoother, which will help participating countries expand new areas of cooperation, open up new growth spaces, and also inject new momentum into world economic growth.
Leave A Comments