Guangdong is one of the birthplaces of the ancient Silk Road on the sea, the most developed province in China’s foreign economic and trade exchanges, and also the biggest economic province of China. When he introduced it to foreign media reporters, Li Chunhong, Provincial Development and Reform Commission director once said, "Seeing from the historical origin, experience of international exchange and cooperation, its economic strength and location, Guangdong has outstanding advantages in the construction of Maritime Silk Road in twenty-first Century. It should positively bear its own responsibilities and make its due contribution in the implementation of the national strategy."
The import and export between Guangdong and ASEAN accounts for 23% of the total
The reporter learned from the Provincial Development and Reform Commission that, Guangdong and the countries along the route have a good basis for cooperation. And it is one of the provinces which keep the most active economic and trade cooperation and close cultural and educational exchanges with the countries along the route in Chinese mainland. Its economic and trade cooperation ranks the top.
Guangdong keeps the biggest volume of economic and trade cooperation with ASEAN in China mainland. Statistics showed that, the total import-export volume between Guangdong and ASEAN in 2013 amounted to $102.21 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 10.7%, accounting for 23% of the total volume between China mainland and ASEAN.
Guangdong also is the province in China mainland which keeps the most mutual investment with ASEAN. In 2013, Guangdong’s actual use of foreign investment from ASEAN amounted $1.15 billion, accounting for 14% of ASEAN capital absorbed by Chinese mainland. By the end of 2013, accumulated investment of Guangdong in ASEAN amounted to $2.58 billion, accounting for 9% of the total investment of China mainland in ASEAN. In 2013, engineering business volume undertaken by Guangdong in ASEAN amounted to US $4.15 billion, accounting for 19.8% of the China mainland.
At the same time, Guangdong plays an outstanding traffic hub role. In 2013, cargo handling capacity of Guangzhou port reached 455 million tons, ranking the fifth in the world; the container throughput of Shenzhen port was 23.29 million TEUs, ranking the third in the world. Zhanjiang Port is a regional hub port with the shortest route from eastern coast of China mainland to ASEAN countries. Port group of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau has become a regional port group with the largest through capacity and the best water depth conditions. Airport which takes Guangzhou Baiyun International airport as the center, has more than 100 air routes leading to the ASEAN and South Asian countries, which is the major aviation hub between the China mainland and ASEAN and South Asia.
In addition, social and cultural exchanges between Guangdong and ASEAN are close and with abundant foreign exchange resources. About 20 million of Guangdong-descent overseas Chinese live in ASEAN, accounting for 1/2 of the total number of China mainland overseas Chinese in this area, which led to closeness in humanities. Guangdong is the largest outbound tourist source of China mainland to ASEAN, and also is the largest inbound tourism destination of ASEAN to China mainland. In 2013, tourists from Guangdong to ASEAN reached 4.269 million, and tourists from ASEAN reached 2.347 million. At present Guangdong is the province with the most Consulate Generals of foreign countries in China, 47 countries establish Consulate Generals in Guangzhou and the countries (except Burma and Brunei) along 21st century maritime Silk Road all establish Consulate Generals in Guangzhou. Guangdong has established 11 pairs of friendly provinces or cities with 5 countries along the route.
Establish cooperation mechanism of convenient tourism visa with countries along the route.
The Provincial Development and Reform Commission said, according to the national deployment, at present Guangdong is actively doing research on the cooperation with countries along the route. Next, based on the principles of mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win result, complement of each other's advantages and mutual development, Guangdong will steadily push forward the cooperation with countries along the route in trade, investment, traffic facilities, social and cultural exchanges, tourism, marine economy and other fields.
In the field of trade cooperation, next step, Guangdong will expand trade cooperation scale with countries along the route, increase market development efforts, expand imported and featured products, and construct trade promotion platform. Such as the establish overseas economic and trade representative offices, to provide services for economic and trade activities; implement Guangdong Import Commodity Trading Center Construction Plan, construct a number of import commodity trading platforms with radiation in the province and even the whole country.
The priority among priorities to construct twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road is "going out". In the investment cooperation field, Guangdong encourages enterprises which have conditions to invest in the countries along the route, to promote deep cooperation in modern agriculture, advanced manufacturing industry, modern service industry, infrastructure construction and transnational operation aspect. In the agriculture field, qualified enterprises are encouraged to carry out comprehensive and cooperative development in the countries along the route, in tropical fruit, fish farming, technical personnel training and other aspects. In the manufacturing field, according to development need of countries along the route, qualified enterprises are encouraged to set up production base, marketing network and regional headquarters, and participate in national highway, port, energy source, municipal administration, communication and other infrastructure constructions.
Road connection is the key to construct 21st century Maritime Silk Road. Guangdong will deepen cooperation with countries along the route in the port, airport, and road traffic, and build convenient and efficient comprehensive sea, land and air integrated channel which connects inside and outside. Such as making efforts to enhance access ability and comprehensive service support capabilities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen hub airport airline network, and to construct “four-hour air traffic circle” along the major cities of countries along the coastline; jointly promote land customs clearance facilitation with ASEAN, and construct main channel in land of “seamless connection” and "zero distance transfer" between China mainland and Indo-china peninsula. Choose the appropriate opportunity to open passenger and freight transport between Guangdong and ASEAN countries.
Tourism has always been the focus and hot spot of the cooperation between Guangdong and the countries along the Maritime Silk Route. In the following step, Guangdong will further explore cooperation potential and develop new tourism cooperation projects. Such as it competes for national support, to establish cooperation mechanism of tourist visa facilitation between Guangdong and countries along the route for the convenience of the passengers; it cooperates with these countries to plan cross-border tour route with the Silk Road theme; it will strengthen facilities construction of international cruise and plan cruise ship route of “revisiting Silk Road”; and it will encourage enterprises to carry out tourism investment and cooperation with these countries along the route to jointly create high-quality tourist destination.
(Submitted by Nanfang Daily)