Zhang Yang

    Nicolezyyy@163.com

    GOVERNMENT officials, political and economic experts, and entrepreneurs from home and abroad were invited to the Silk Road Think Tank Association Conference that opened at the Wuzhou Guest House in Futian District, Shenzhen, yesterday.

    Shenzhen Party chief Ma Xingrui and Mayor Xu Qin also attended the conference.

    The two-day conference, co-organized by the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, Fudan University and the Shenzhen Municipal Government, has three parallel discussions highlighting the multilateral connectivity, existing trade barriers and environmental issues among countries in the Belt and Road region.

    A number of Shenzhen-based enterprises such as Tencent, ZTE and BYD were also invited to an exchange meeting with foreign think tanks.

    Radek Pyffel, president of Poland-Asia Research Center, said he attended the conference to help small enterprises in Poland benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative because it has been hard for small-sized companies in Poland and in central European countries to use existing infrastructure.

    Pyffel said he had thought the economy of Guangdong was based on a cheap labor force, but he sees now Shenzhen is focusing on technological innovation, which is a good example for Poland.

    Alfred Gusenbauer, former chancellor of Austria, said the Belt and Road Initiative would enhance land connections, which are faster than sea connections, between Austria and China. He added that Austria has had good relations with China for many decades and Austria will show openness to central Asia.

    He added that a growing variety of goods could be transported on the Silk Road, helping the logistics industry in Austria. He hopes the railway from China to Eastern Europe will be extended to Vienna, capital of Austria. He said that the project would also create thousands of jobs in Austria.

    “For high-quality goods, it’s always good to have more access,” Gusenbauer said, adding that Austria has many small-sized and innovative companies that produce high-quality goods, but currently the country’s exports to China mainly go to the eastern coast of China.

    Dennis Rumley, a professor of Indian Ocean Studies of the Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute, was invited to give a six-minute speech about food and energy security issues yesterday afternoon.

    When talking about the slowdown of the Chinese economy, Rumley said he wondered whether lower growth rates would affect China’s ability to apply investments in the Belt and Road region.

    A total of 1,030 companies and organizations were set up overseas by Shenzhen-based enterprises last year, with 51 of them in 20 countries and regions along the Belt and Road, with the agreed investments amounting to US$460 million, 233.7 percent higher than that in 2014, according to a Shenzhen Special Zone Daily report.

    Meanwhile, Shenzhen has benefited from the Belt and Road Initiative. Shenzhen companies did contract work in 37 countries worth US$8.49 billion last year, making up 47.3 percent of the city’s overall turnover of contract work.

    The value of imports and exports in 2015 from Shenzhen to the Belt and Road region was US$72.66 billion, accounting for 16.4 percent of the city’s total value of imports and exports last year.

    Shenzhen secured 25 service outsourcing contracts in the Belt and Road region last year, with the value of contracts totaling up to US$610 million.