This photo taken on Jan. 14, 2021 shows a view of the entrance of China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone in Ain Sokhna, Egypt. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)
BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhua) -- Propelled by the momentum of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China's efforts on joint development of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones have received considerable payback in the past decade, and a slew of China-funded overseas zones and parks are now taking shape and functioning well.
These overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, mostly used to be merely greenfields, now are becoming wonderlands that are able to lend important support to the Belt and Road countries to develop related industries and carry out cooperation in competitive industries, as well as powerful guarantee to jointly cope with the impact and risks on global industrial and supply chains.
It is widely believed that these zones will help realize all-win and high-quality development and better implement the philosophy of BRI and "Community of Shared Future for Mankind" to the world in the years to come.
-- Platforms to facilitate global economic cooperation
China-funded overseas zones and parks have now become important platforms to foster and facilitate economic cooperation of enterprises from around the globe.
Statistics from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) show, by the end of 2022, Chinese enterprises have invested a total of 397.9 billion yuan in cooperation zones built in the Belt and Road countries and regions, creating 421,000 jobs locally.
Among the major overseas parks built by Chinese enterprises in the Belt and Road countries and regions, the China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park (the Great Stone), the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Estate, the PT Indonesian Morowali Industrial Park, the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SSEZ) in Cambodia, the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, Nigeria's Lekki Free Zone and the China-Ethiopia Eastern Industry Zone have developed rapidly with their own advantages.
Data from the China-Belarus Great Stone Industrial Park show, as of May 2023, the industrial park has seen108 companies settle in the park, including 43 Chinese companies.
According to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), the major operator of Nigeria's Lekki Free Zone (LFZ), by June 2023, LFZ had registrations from 175 companies, with 116 of these entities having signed investment agreements to open businesses within the zone, comprising 73 Chinese firms and 43 international ventures.
Zheng Jun, Chief International Business Expert of CCECC, emphasized the strategic location of LFZ as a primary advantage, noting that it marked CCECC's inaugural overseas development. LFZ has emerged as an indispensable conduit for Chinese enterprises seeking entry into African as well as European markets, establishing itself as an influential hub within Nigeria and Africa under the BRI.
Moreover, CCECC has cultivated invaluable expertise through the construction and management of LFZ, applying this knowledge to the development of other international zones and catalyzing a fresh wave of growth for CCECC's worldwide ventures, Zheng added.
This aerial photo taken on Dec. 29, 2021 shows the Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone located at the east coast of Thailand. (Xinhua/Wang Teng)
-- All-win solution to reward stakeholders
According to the Assessment Measures for Overseas Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones issued by China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC), the country's overseas economic and trade cooperation zones can be categorized into six types of processing and manufacturing, resource utilization, agriculture and forestry development, trade and logistics, technology research and development, and diversified and comprehensive ones.
The overseas cooperation parks built by China in the Belt and Road countries mainly develop and operate by relying on investment from leading enterprises, attracting Chinese enterprises to settle in, and government support and promotion.
Various types of Chinese enterprises are apt to bring suitable technologies into the cooperation zones and align technological and industrial standards with situations in host countries and cultivate local-made products, hire local people to create local employments and produce fiscal revenues for local governments, without attaching political conditions like Western countries are doing, according to experts familiar with the matter.
In general, the overseas zones built by China provide all-win solutions for stakeholders of these zones and parks, especially for host countries and local communities.
Take the Great Stone as an example, the Park has gathered a large number of industry-leading projects, such as China-Belarus Business Logistics Park of China Merchants Group, Torch Park Project of China National Machinery Industry Corporation (SINOMACH), and industry leaders such as Zoomlion, Shaanxi Fast Auto Drive Group Co., Ltd. (Fast) and Interpublic Group of Companies (IPG).
As for LFZ, the contribution to the local economy is also prominent. Lekki Port, under the operation of LFZ, plays a crucial role in galvanizing the port-centric economy of southwest Nigeria and the neighboring industrial parks, free trade zones, and urban development. Interconnected with LFZ and the Lagos Free Zone, the Port is expected to effectively invigorate Nigeria's manufacturing, industrial, and services sector, which will yield a positive impact on the revenue streams of both the Lagos State and the federal government, along with enhancing local job creation opportunities, said Sun Hong, deputy director of the Center for South-South Cooperation under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR).
-- Brighter future expected as digital transformation underway
China and the Belt and Road countries have been in full swing to embrace digital and intelligent development. Remarkable progress has been made in digital transformation of the Belt and Road cooperation. As a new form of business and model, cross-border e-commerce has shown booming growth momentum and becomes increasingly popular in China-built overseas economic and trade cooperation zones.
It is learned that from 2016 to 2022, the cross-border e-commerce transaction scale between China and the Belt and Road countries has increased by more than 127 times, with that of imports by more than 10 times and that of exports by more than 140 times.
According to MOC, by the end of 2022, there were 165 comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in China, covering 31 provincial-level regions. The number of overseas warehouses exceeded 2,000, with a total area of more than 16 million square meters; cross-border e-commerce platforms have been established for China-Russia, China-Kazakhstan and China-Uzbekistan trade; cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) of Alibaba and Joybuy of JD.com have accelerated layouts in the Belt and Road countries.
The China-built overseas cooperation zones have wisely followed this trend of digital transformation.
As China's first national-level trade and logistics overseas cooperation zone, the Central European Trade and Logistics Cooperation Zone (CECZ) has been making great efforts to promote development of the Digital Silk Road.
The Zone has built the Vác e-commerce industrial and logistics center, which provides intelligent warehousing, cross-border e-commerce technology exchange and transformation services for Hungary and the Central and Eastern European markets. A smart warehouse of the e-commerce logistics center is under construction, involving an investment of 69 million euros and covering an area of 30,000 square meters. It is expected to enter operation as planned in 2024.
As for the Great Stone, the Belarus Pavilion e-commerce project was put into operation on e-commerce platforms of JD and Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) in June 2022, said Li Zhonghan, general manager of Great Stone Industrial Park development company, adding that the project used live-streaming e-commerce to sell high-quality Belarusian products, generating 8.9335 million yuan of sales in 2022. (Contributed by Qiu Jun, Niu Huizhe, Gao Jingyan, Su Dan and edited by Gao Jingyan, Gu Shanshan with Xinhua Silk Road, qiujun@xinhua.org)
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