China Resilience: In more than nine years, economic, trade co-op under BRI thrives with fruitful results yielded

It has been more than nine years since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was proposed, and fruitful results in economic and trade cooperation have been achieved under the initiative, greatly boosting the social and economic development of the Belt and Road countries and bringing practical benefits to their people.

So far, China has inked over 200 Belt and Road cooperation documents with 150 countries and 32 international organizations.

-- Trade scale keeps expanding

Data showed that from 2013 to 2021, the total trade in goods between China and the Belt and Road countries was nearly 11 trillion U.S. dollars.

China's imports and exports with the Belt and Road countries in Jan.-Nov., 2022 (unit: trln yuan)

Source: General Administration of Customs of China

New forms of trade develop rapidly. Data from the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) showed that as of November 24 this year, China has established bilateral e-commerce cooperation mechanisms with 27 countries. Silk Road E-commerce, an international cooperation platform created for advancing economic and trade cooperation under the BRI, has become a highlight with extensive overseas partners.

To develop cross-border e-commerce, China has rolled out a basket of supportive policies, with the list of imported retail goods for cross-border e-commerce continuously enriched. As of November 2022, a total of 165 comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce were approved for establishment in China, covering 31 provincial-level regions.

The country has also organized a series of activities, including special area sales, live-streaming, online national pavilion, etc., to promote high-quality and featured products of the Silk Road E-commerce partners to enter the Chinese market.

Developing e-commerce is an essential step to tap into the Chinese market, said an executive from a Brazilian juice company, adding that the Chinese market is undergoing great digital transformation, and the highly mature e-commerce market in China will provide companies with many opportunities.

Railway transport helps secure continuous development of cross-border trade. As a flagship project and iconic brand of the BRI, the China-Europe freight train service has helped a lot in stabilizing the international supply chain.

Thanks to the strong logistics support of the China-Europe freight train service and the sea-rail combined freight train service, Chinese products have taken the spotlight at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, popular with fans from all over the world.

By early December this year, the China-Laos Railway has been under operation for a year during which it has transported more than 10 million tonnes (metric tons) of cargo, with the category of goods expanding from more than 100 in the initial stage of its opening to more than 1,200, reaching more than 10 Belt and Road countries, including Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam, etc.

International economic and trade events, such as the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) and the China International Import Expo (CIIE), constantly set stages for economic and trade cooperation.

Since 2018, the CIIE has been held for five consecutive years, helping related countries expand trade in a continuous manner with a total intended transaction amount of nearly 350 billion U.S. dollars. About 2,000 commodities have seen their first launch or first exhibition at the CIIE.

This photo taken on Nov. 2, 2022 shows the south square of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue for the fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE), in east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

Held as scheduled for five consecutive years, the CIIE has helped the whole world share opportunities in the Chinese market, sending a positive signal of China's all-round opening up and showing China's responsibility to promote world economic recovery, commented the World Openness Report 2022 released at the fifth Hongqiao International Economic Forum held in Shanghai in early November this year.

-- Investment and financing cooperation continues to grow

Data showed that from 2013 to 2021, China's direct investment in the Belt and Road countries totaled 161.31 billion U.S. dollars, with an average annual growth rate of 5.4 percent, involving infrastructure, e-commerce, communication technology, finance and other sectors. By the end of 2021, China had set up more than 11,000 enterprises in these countries, accounting for about a quarter of China's total overseas enterprises.

In the first nine months of 2022, non-financial direct investment by Chinese enterprises in these countries reached 103.4 billion yuan, up 7.4 percent and accounting for 18.2 percent of the total in the same period.

The diversified investment and financing system has been continuously improved. Over the past more than nine years, the channels for investment and financing under the BRI have been expanding, with a diversified, stable and sustainable investment and financing system gradually established.

As an important measure for the green development of the BRI, the Green Investment Principles for the Belt and Road (GIP) has seen expanding influence since it was released in 2018.

China's RMB settlements with the Belt and Road countries stood at 5.42 trillion yuan (763.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021, up 19.6 percent year on year and accounting for 14.8 percent of China's total cross-border use of RMB in 2021, according to the People's Bank of China. Besides, by the end of 2021, China had signed bilateral currency swap agreements with 22 Belt and Road countries and established RMB clearing arrangements in eight Belt and Road countries.

Multilateral financial institutions provide important financial support. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank and other multilateral financial institutions initiated by China, as well as the Silk Road Fund, have provided important financial support for the development of the Belt and Road countries.

As of early July 2022, the AIIB owned 105 members, approved 181 projects and raised 35.7 billion U.S. dollars of funds. The mutual investment fund jointly set up by the Silk Road Fund and the European Investment Fund has invested in nearly 20 countries, involving more than 80 small- and medium-sized enterprises.

-- Overseas economic and trade cooperation zones flourish

Over the past more than nine years, a number of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones have brought China's zone development experience abroad, creating jobs for local people and driving local economic development. Data showed that from 2013 to 2021, China has built 79 zones for economic and trade cooperation in 24 Belt and Road countries, investing 43.08 billion U.S. dollars and creating 346,000 local jobs.

By the end of September 2022, nearly 70 percent of the overseas economic and trade cooperation zones included in the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) were located in the Belt and Road countries, creating more than 400,000 local jobs and making positive contributions to local economic and social development, according to MOC.

The Great Stone China-Belarus Industrial Park, a landmark cooperation project within the Belt and Road framework, has played a huge role in promoting economic and trade cooperation between China and Belarus. By the end of 2021, there were 85 resident enterprises in the park, 43 of which were Chinese-funded. On May 11, 2022, the park welcomed the 90th enterprise to settle in. On November 3, 2022, six new resident enterprises settled in the park.

The Chinese-invested Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SSEZ) in Cambodia is also a landmark project within the Belt and Road framework. As of early November this year, SSEZ has housed approximately 170 factories from China, Europe, the United States, Southeast Asia and other regions with a total investment of more than 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, creating around 30,000 jobs.

According to the SSEZ's latest report, the value of imports and exports passing through the zone rose to 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in the first nine months of 2022, up 21 percent from a year earlier. The economic zone is expected to accommodate a total of 300 factories in coming years, and that will create up to 100,000 jobs for the Cambodian people.

-- Economic and trade cooperation under the BRI enjoys broad prospects

The fruitful results over the past years prove the strong vitality of the BRI which is in line with the trend of globalization and will contribute more to the development of the world.

In the view of Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as globalization faces various problems and challenges, the BRI proposed by China will become the engine of globalization in the future.

According to World Bank data, BRI transportation infrastructure projects, if fully implemented, could generate 1.6 trillion U.S. dollars a year in global proceeds by 2030, accounting for 1.3 percent of the global economy, with 90 percent of the proceeds shared by partner countries, and low-income and low- and middle-income countries benefiting the most.

As the economic benefits brought by the Belt and Road construction continue to be highlighted, more and more developing countries will be attracted to participate in the BRI, and cooperation under the framework will continue to expand, written Racco Lacorte, an Italian professor at Nankai University, in an article.

By promoting sustainable and mutually beneficial cooperation, the BRI has provided developing countries with a tool kit conducive to long-term economic development, and in the process of jointly building the Belt and Road, China has actively shared its valuable experience in development with related developing countries, written Hussein Askary, co-founder of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden (BRIX), in an article.

He noted that the Belt and Road construction will continuously promote the economic and social development of the Belt and Road countries, and bring more opportunities to their enterprises and more benefits to their people.