General updates

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.

July 4 —The Vienna Institute of International Comparative Economics (WIIW) has released a proposal for a “European Silk Road” with investments ranging up to €1 trillion over a 10-year period, focussed on two main corridors. The WIIW proposal is addressed in particular to the Austrian government, for an initiative among the EU partner countries, to be launched during Austria’s half-year rotating EU presidency, which began on July 1.

The WIIW proposals delineate the two corridors. One is Between Lyon and Moscow, extended to Barcelona and Lisbon in the west, and to Nishny Novgorod, Samara and Uralsk in the east. The second corridor runs from Milan to Zurich, Vienna, and Budapest, Bucharest, and Constanta, extended eastward to Novorossyisk and Volgograd, with another branch running to Poti, Tbilisi, and Baku. This can, the survey says, create up to 7 million new jobs, in projects of building bridges, railroads, highways, ports, and other infrastructure.

Explaining the survey, WIIW board member Dionys Lehner said that if Europe had plenty of money to stabilize the volatile banking sector after 2008, money should not be held back where infrastructure projects of this importance are concerned. Particularly the Russian aspect of it is of immediate interest for Austria: More than €300 million of new exports for the Austrian economy annually could be expected to result from such a program.

Aug. 3, 2018-The office of Uruguayan president Tabare Vasquez has announced on its website that it will formally join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to be announced officially during the Aug. 20-27 “Uruguay Week in China” to be celebrated in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Guangzhou and Conqing.

Although the Uruguayans claim they are the “first” Ibero-American nation to officially join the BRI, both Panama and the Dominican Republic, which established diplomatic relations
with China during the past year, also claim to be the “first” in joining the BRI. Undoubtedly there will be many more “firsts”!

Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry and the Uruguay XXI trade promotion office are organizing the “Uruguay Week in China” event, and foreign minister Nin Novoa will lead the delegation
participating in it. Uruguay XXI’s director, Antonio Carambula, stressed that during the Aug. 20-27 events, “we will be presenting Uruguay as a nation of great investment opportunities
…. but also thinking of the possibilities of expanding to the rest of the region,” according to the montevideo.comwebsite.

Following the August events, Uruguay will send another large delegation to Shanghai, to attend the Nov. 5-10 China International Import Expo, hosted by the Chinese Commerce Ministry and the Shanghai municipal government. This is a huge affair, at which representatives of at least 100 countries are expected to attend. Several Ibero-American governments and companies have already committed to attending, and the Chinese continue to organize for this aggressively around the world.

(Chinese imports are in fact growing significantly faster than its exports now; a 21% annual pace in the first half of 2018, as opposed to 10% annual rate of growth in exports.) Also taking place in November in the city of Zhuhai is the China-Latin America-Caribbean Business Forum, which Uruguay hosted last year, and is another very large event including Chinese and Ibero-American businessmen and government officials. Later in November, Carambula announced, the “icing on the cake” will be Chinese president Xi Jinping’s state visit to Uruguay following the G20 meeting.