Germany plays active role in Belt and Road construction

The cooperation and investment concepts brought by the Belt and Road Initiative go far beyond traditional trade and investment sectors encompassing all economic fields, according to Kensuke Tanaka, head of the Asia Desk, OECD Development Centre, chinanews.com reported.

The Belt and Road Initiative has promoted innovation, such as the building of a green Silk Road that will benefit the environment and enhance the sustainable development of countries along the route, Tanaka said during the China Day at the Euro Finance Week recently held in Frankfurt, Germany.

Innovation is not only the important content of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, but also the consensus reached in the G20 Hangzhou summit, he pointed out.

The Belt and Road Initiative will enhance the construction of infrastructure in regions involved, especially railway transportation in relatively less-developed Western China, central Asia and southern Asia. Countries in central and southern Asia have a huge demand for infrastructure, highlighting the construction of infrastructure as part of their national development strategies, Tanaka stressed.

Europe, as the terminus of the Belt and Road, has made a lot of progress on developing China railway express routes. By June this year, 39 railways connecting China and Europe had been opened, he pointed out. 

In 2015, 815 cargo trains operated between China and Europe. And over 400 of them, with a total of 30,000 containers, ran between China and Germany; the container number is expected to hit 100,000 in 2020.

China’s CRRC has acquired orders of passenger and cargo trains in Ireland, Serbia, UK and Spain. Germany’s DHL will launch new routes including Chengdu-Istanbul, Vietnam-China-Europe under the framework of the Belt and Road. This will gradually integrate China and Europe.

The EU's investment plan, often called the Juncker investment plan, has much in common with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, said Shi Mingde, Chinese ambassador to Germany. Thus, investment cooperation could be carried out between China and Europe.

Dusseldorf, as an important hub of two important railways connecting China and Europe, will benefit directly from the Belt and Road Initiative, enabling the German city to develop alongside China, its mayor, Thomas Geisel, said.

Germany's Nordrhein has become the first choice for those Chinese enterprises aiming to explore the German market, with over 900 entities having settled down in the region. And more than 2,700 enterprises from Nordrhein have invested in China. Dusseldorf and even the entire Nordrhein benefit from the trade cooperation between China and Germany, Geisel added.