BRICS cooperation fosters business opportunities

Aerial photo taken on Dec. 8, 2021 shows the city view of Xiamen, east China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua/Jiang Kehong)

XIAMEN, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Niren Anand's new shoe factory, with an investment of 10 million U.S. dollars in the city of Bhubaneswar in east India, started operation on July 5 this year. It is expected to produce 2 million pairs of shoes annually.

"If I look back, I can find that the decision to start my business in Xiamen was quite good and quite progressive in 2011. And I can see a lot of benefit now because of that decision," Anand said.

Xiamen, a coastal city in east China's Fujian Province, hosted the BRICS summit in 2017, with its focus on cooperation among major emerging economies.

Statistics released by Xiamen Customs show that in the first seven months of 2023, trade volume between Xiamen and the four other BRICS countries reached about 48.35 billion yuan (about 6.63 billion U.S. dollars), up 33.1 percent year on year.

Anand, from the city of Darbhanga in Bihar, India, established his own company named Xiamen Ever Trade Import and Export Co., Ltd. in China in 2011, focusing on designing, manufacturing, and exporting shoes.

During the BRICS summit in Xiamen, Anand joined a business forum.

"Before BRICS, very few people knew about Xiamen. But after the 2017 BRICS summit, the city became world famous. It became easier for us to connect with people, and our orders from India and the rest of the world have increased a lot since then," Anand said.

Over the past decade, Anand's company in China has grown a lot, from two workers at the beginning to over 200 workers now, while the sales revenue generated by their shoes exceeded 8 million U.S. dollars last year.

Marcelo Gomes, a 31-year-old Brazilian, was sent to Xiamen in September 2017 by his company, a leading Brazilian LED distributor.

"Before I came to China, I was very curious about the Chinese history and culture. I saw the Beijing Olympic Games of 2008, which was so impressive. That's why I chose to come to China, while Xiamen is a strategic place for our company in Brazil," Gomes said.

Gomes, who is responsible for R&D and quality control in the company, said suppliers in Xiamen offer very competitive products that are popular among Brazilian consumers. Over the past few years, he has purchased over 20 million LED lights in Xiamen per year.

He remembered that in 2017, the whole city was filled with excitement because of the BRICS summit, and the city changed to be more beautiful and more international after the summit.

"The key word of BRICS for me is cooperation," Gomes said, "I think the word cooperation is just like our business. We make the designs in Brazil, and Chinese factories manufacture them for us. Also, we purchase high-quality products and sell them to Brazil and the rest of the world as well."