General updates

Oct. 21 –The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has been building up its loans to fundamental infrastructure investment throughout Asia, during the past 20 weeks.On Sept. 28, the AIIB approved new loans totalling nearly $1 billion to finance projects in Egypt, India, and Turkey. The three loans include the AIIB’s first to the Egyptian government, which consists of a $300 million investment to improve rural sanitation services in the country, co-financed by the World Bank, the bank said on Oct. 19. The Beijing-based bank board of directors also approved a $455 million loan to improve all-weather rural roads in Andhra Pradesh in southeast India; and a loan of up to $200 million to the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey (TSKB) to finance energy projects.

In September, the AIIB said it was considering $541 million in loans for three propposed infrastructure and power projects in Bangladesh, according to BSS news agency. This includes the Mymensingh Kewatkhali Bridge project, which is part of the Dhaka-Mymensingh-India border corridor; the Sylhet to Tamabil Road Upgradation Project; and a power system upgrade and expansion project for the Chittagong region.

In June, the AIIB approved $1.2 billion in loans for infrastructure construction in India.
The AIIB has made about $5.8 billion in loans since its formation in December 2015. The World Bank has about $61 billion in loans outstanding. But the AIIB’s loans have no conditionalities, and are for real development. The AIIB’s development thrust, and buildup in the speed of its lending from a low level represents the direction of a transformation in the world.

Oct. 14 – Senior Chinese and Japanese government officials began a two-day symposium Sunday in Tokyo – the 14^th Annual Tokyo-Beijing Forum- at which the degree of Japanese participation in the Belt and Road Initiative great projects program of China, is again the subject, reported {Japan Times}.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Oct. 25-27 will make the first state visit to China by a Japanese leader since 2011; this was announced by the Chinese Foreign Ministry Oct. 12. At the Tokyo meeting, Wei Jianguo, vice chairman at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, revealed that during Abe’s visit, about 1,000 people will attend a signing ceremony for more than 60 joint projects involving Japanese and Chinese firms.

“Those projects are all designed to jointly develop `third-country’ markets in countries outside of China and Japan,” reported {Japan Times}. “During the symposium, Chinese officials repeatedly urged Japan to jointly promote third-country development projects in what is seen by some as a push by Beijing for Tokyo to join its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which is centered on massive infrastructure projects in Central Asia, Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.”

“Right now, the China-Japan relationship has a forward-looking momentum. High-level contacts have been maintained and exchanges in various areas have been strengthened,” Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua told the symposium.

July 22 – The Tokyo daily {Asahi Shimbun} reported July 20, “Japan, China Set To Work Out Joint Development Projects.” The paper reported that a committee Japan and China created in May to coordinate their investments along the Belt and Road Initiative launched by China in 2013, will hold its first meeting in Beijing in September. The meeting “will discuss economic cooperation projects in third countries related to China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative,” {Asahi Shimbun} said.

And its sources in Japan indicated that railroad construction in Thailand is the leading first candidate project to be tackled jointly by Japanese and Chinese companies, with credit aid from both governments.

As {EIR} has reported, high-speed rail lines both north-south within Thailand and east-west connecting it to other Southeast Asian nations, have already been projected with Chinese aid.
The committee is expected to be headed by Hiroto Izumi, a special advisor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, on the Japanese side, and Ning Jizhe, vice chairman of the pre-eminent National Development and Reform Commission, on the Chinese side, according to the paper. It said the two countries “are aiming to decide on joint projects through the committee and announce them in conjunction with the Japan-China summit to be held later this year when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the country, sources said.”

First Silk Road cargo shipment from Sweden celebrated

“If you want to get rich, build a road first!” With this old Chinese proverb the moderator Hussein Askary opened the 2nd China-Sweden Business Forum, which was hosted by China-Sweden Business Council (CSBC) and the new association called the Belt & Road Executive Group in Sweden (BRIX) at the Grand Hotel Winter Garden in Stockholm on September 28, 2018. This year’s main theme of the Forum was the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). One hundred members and guests took part in the event.

In his opening address, H.E. The Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Gui Congyou, received a spontaneous applause when he brought the news to the audience that the first New Silk Road cargo shipment from Sweden to China had been sent off the week before. A train with containers left the community Insjön in the county Dalarna for the long route via Gothenburg and Hamburg to Ganzhou International Port bringing high-quality wood for a furniture producer in the Jiangxi province in Southern China.

The authorities and media in Sweden have been oblivious to the BRI so far. But this Forum provided the insights necessary to change that attitude. The association BRIX that co-hosted the event was launched at the Forum to promote an open dialogue and greater awareness of the BRI and its benefits for Sweden in particular, and the world community in general.

One key aspect of the BRI is that it is not only about links to China, but an initiative to promote global connectivity. All nations of the world are invited to participate on their own terms in the BRI. Stephen Brawer, BRIX vice Chairman, in his presentation, pointed to a world map where all continents will be connected, in the future even with links reaching out to the Americas and Australia. He pointed to the September 3-4 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing where 53 African nations linked up with BRI to fulfill the African Union’s Agenda 2063 for a continent wide modern infrastructure network and eliminating poverty in the continent.

“to foster a new type of international relations” and “forge partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation and of friendship rather than alliance.”

The BRI should not be seen only as a “practical” transport system for trade, a U.K. strategy and PR senior adviser for Sino-European public relations, underlined that the BRI, since its launching by President Xi Jinping in 2013, also has a philosophical dimension of creating harmony, “to foster a new type of international relations”, and “forge partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation and of friendship rather than alliance”. She advised Sweden to establish institutions capable of developing long term BRI cooperation with China, just as the UK had done with an office for the BRI/related Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a regional cooperation mechanism called Northern Powerhouse, the all parliamentary China-UK group, and the government’s Permanent Envoy to the BRI.

The typical misunderstandings of the BRI in Swedish business circles were dissected by Ali Farmandeh, chairman of the CSBC. The BRI is much more than Chinese production of Swedish goods. Furthermore, he stressed, “the New Silk Road is also not something far away, as many in the northern corner of Europe think. Among the 70 nations that have joined the BRI, there are also neighbors in Europe, who are already building their parts of the world connectivity network, projects where Swedish businesses can take part immediately.”

Working with China is sometimes challenging to the old world due to cultural differences, as Ying Wu, a former Student of Royal Technical School (KTH) in Stockholm and now CEO of SinceUs, explained in the final presentation at the Forum. Turning many Swedish business habits upside down, she brought many insightful and humorous examples of problems she has met in assisting Swedish clients to enter and expand in the Chinese market of 437 million e-commerce shoppers. She presented the case study of a Swedish brand Airnum, which she had helped bring from unknown to a bestselling brand in just one year.

These opportunities for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) are important to make well known as best practices for further understanding in Sweden of the importance of the BRI and the opportunities for innovative businesses it opens up in so many countries worldwide.

The Swedish Wood products have a long tradition of being in the forefront of reaching out to new markets, since the industry was established in a big way as a pure export industry in the second half of the 19th century. A Swedish sawmill in Dalarna becoming a first explorer of the New Silk Road routes through Eurasia is very good news for the whole Swedish industry that is curious about the tremendous growth of new markets, cities and new industrial parks stimulated by the BRI.

Further information:

www.brixsweden.com

info@brixsweden.com

July 8 -A call for stronger Arab participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative is expected to be the central result of the July 10 meeting in Beijing of the eighth ministerial conference of the Chinese-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF), according to a feature by China’s Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi posted in Gulf News. Chinese President Xi Jinping will address the opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the People; the CASCF will be attended by host Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and by the foreign ministers and other ministers representing the 21 Arab countries, as well as the secretary-general of the Arab League, and Kuwait Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, he wrote.

“The inception of the CASCF in 2004 has further upgraded China-Arab relations, by adding a new driver in addition to the bilateral channels, and has thus accelerated the growth of China-Arab cooperation across the board,” Wang wrote.

According to China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong, Xi’s speech will highlight his country’s desire to develop stronger relations with Arab states, and it will inject new impetus into these relations, improve prospects of cooperation between the two sides, and bring new hopes to the regional peace.