Join Hands to Promote the High-quality Development of the Belt and Road Initiative

President Laskaridis,

Minister Georgiadis,

Distinguished guests, dear friends,

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

It gives me great pleasure to come to the beautiful port of Piraeus again to participate in the symposium. On October 2, 2010, I came to Piraeus Port as a member of the Chinese government delegation, to visit the container terminal that COSCO was building. It has been nine years since then, and Piraeus Port has become the largest container transshipment port and an international logistics distribution center around the Mediterranean area. I am very glad for this landmark achievement of China-Greece cooperation! First of all, on behalf of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, I would like to extend my warm welcome and heartfelt thanks to all the experts and scholars who have come to this symposium!

On October 1st, we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China, displayed the world the great achievements that all Chinese ethnic groups made through joint endeavors and hard work. It also presented the world the missions and responsibilities that China takes as a responsible major power. Over the past 70 years, China has been adhering to the path of peaceful development, pursuing an opening-up strategy for mutual benefits and win-win outcomes, and is committed to working with all nations to build a global community of shared future. As a practical platform for building such a community in the new era, the Belt and Road initiative has won positive responses from numerous countries, including Greece, and international organizations and has attracted worldwide participation.

Today, we are here to discuss the future development of the BRI, which is of great significance to China-Greece and China-EU cooperation in the new era. I would like to take this opportunity to stress a few points.

1. The joint construction of the BRI by the international community has entered a new high-quality development stage.

In April this year, President Xi Jinping pointed out at the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, that “going ahead, we should focus on priorities and project execution, move forward with results-oriented implementation, just like an architect refining the blueprint, and jointly promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.” It is a fundamental judgment by Chinese leadership based on the successful practice of jointly building the BRI by the international community, and is also the consensus of all BRI partners. In the past six years, with the joint efforts of the international community, the overall layout of BRI has been completed, and the cooperation in various fields has seen remarkable progresses, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality development of the BRI.

First, the concepts and principles of BRI construction have been widely acknowledged. The BRI upholds the principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits. It follows a Silk Road spirit featuring peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit. Over the past five years or so, China has engaged in thorough communication and coordination with participating countries and international organizations, and reached a broad consensus on international cooperation for building the Belt and Road. The initiative and its core concepts have been written into documents from the United Nations, G20, APEC, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, League of Arab States, African Union, and other international and regional organizations.

Second, the BRI partnership has been deepened and expanded. Within the framework of BRI, more and more countries and international organizations have exchanged views on economic development plans and policies and discussed and agreed economic cooperation plans and measures. They have become partners for building the BRI. To date, China has signed 197 cooperation agreements with 137 countries and 30 international organizations. The Belt and Road has expanded from Asia and Europe to include more new participants in Africa, Latin America and the South Pacific.

Third, the key areas of BRI construction have been solidly promoted. In the past six years, the BRI has been releasing cooperation potential in policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and closer people-to-people ties, and the cooperation achievements have benefited alongside countries and nations. From 2013 to 2018, the value of trade between China and other BRI countries surpassed US$6 trillion. China’s direct investment in BRI countries surpassed US$90 billion, realizing a turnover of US$400 billion in foreign contracted projects in these countries. The Silk Road Fund, international multilateral financial institutions and a number of commercial banks have expanded financing channels to provide stable, transparent and high-quality financial support for BRI construction.

Fourth, the cooperation mechanisms for BRI construction have been consolidated and improved. At present, the BRI construction has formed an all-round cooperation framework headed by the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, fostered by existing multilateral institutions, and underpinned by the new financing platforms. Through the successful hosting of two Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, 562 cooperation consensus, measures and pragmatic achievements have been reached by countries, local governments, and enterprises, which lay a solid foundation for ushering the BRI construction into a new stage of high-quality development. On the basis of mutual respect and mutual trust, the existing multilateral cooperation institutions actively carry out substantive synergy with related countries for jointly building the BRI. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank initiated by China, the BRI Public-Private-Partnership mechanism and the third-party market cooperation mechanism are providing constant financial flow for BRI construction.

Second, high-quality development is the necessary choice for upgrading the BRI.

To maintain a healthy development momentum, and move towards a stage of rooted and sustainable development, we must turn the BRI construction into high-quality development path. High-quality development is the fundamental guarantee for the substantive, steady and sustained construction of the BRI. It is a necessary choice for optimizing and upgrading the BRI construction. In the new historical stage, the high-quality development of BRI will focus on the following aspects.

First, high-level strategic synergy. Since the introduction of the BRI, many countries have actively nurtured synergy between their own development strategies and the BRI. They have introduced corresponding implementation plans for strategic synergy, which have led to positive effects. The regional and international development agendas such as the Eurasian Economic Union, the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025, the 2063 Agenda of African Union, and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will be complemented and fostered through strengthening the synergy with BRI. This will certainly amplify the positive effects of BRI at a higher level and wider scope, and generate mutual benefits and win-win results.

Second, development planning with a high starting point. In March 2015, the Chinese government formulated and released the “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road”, which expounded the principles, ideas, priorities, mechanisms and China’s actions of jointly building the BRI. It calls for taking the opportunity of jointly building the BRI to boost greater openness, exchange and integration at wider scope and higher level. In April 2019, the Chinese government issued “The Belt and Road Initiative: Progress, Contributions and Prospects” report. Summing up the progresses of BRI construction, it proposes to build the Belt and Road into a road of peace, prosperity, opening up, green development, innovation, connected civilizations and clean government. 

Third, high construction standards. Over the past six years, Chinese enterprises have been paying great attention to the internationally recognized rules, standards and best practices, and have implemented a large number of model projects with the most advanced technologies, facilitates and the highest level of management and services. They have set a good example for the high-quality development of BRI. In May this year, I paid a visit to the China-Belarus Industrial Park, where I learned that the Park was awarded the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme Certificate. It is the first such certificate that Belarus ever obtained in history, and a convincing example of Sino-foreign cooperation to promote the BRI construction with high standards.

Fourth, highly efficient institutions. The BRI involves a large number of countries and regions and covers a wide range of fields. According to the characteristics and needs of diverse countries, regions and cooperation areas, the BRI construction not only requires revitalizing existing bilateral and multilateral institutions, but also creates many new ones. By doing this, it forms a flexible and efficient operation system in which the overall coordination institutions and specific functional institutions, governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations coordinate with one another. The newly established institutions uphold the principles of simplification, convenience and efficiency, design governance and operational structure, and meet the needs of the rapid development of BRI. For example, the AIIB cuts the approval time of investment and financing projects on the basis of compliance to around 3.5 months averagely, while the preparatory work for similar projects by similar international organizations takes 2 to 3 years.

Fifth, high-level openness and cooperation. We will build a BRI to boost mutual benefit and win-win results, strive to create an open cooperation platform to promote the formation of an open world economy. Countries are welcome to join in the initiative if they so will. Through the Belt and Road, China will keep opening its door wider. In November 2018, China hosted the world's first import-themed national-level expo. Just three days ago, the second China International Import Expo was launched. In March 2019, China introduced the Foreign Investment Law, which establishes a nationwide “pre-establishment national treatment and negative list” management system, and opens the fields out of the list for foreign investors. These major actions demonstrate China's firm determination and confidence to promote a higher-level openness and common development with the world. China will reach out its arms and offers countries in the world more opportunities of market, investment and growth. Together, we can achieve development for all.

Third, the high-quality development of BRI is bound to usher in a bright future.

In the past six years, the BRI has turned ideas into actions and vision into reality, fully demonstrating the strong vitality of the significant initiative. In the new stage of high-quality development, the BRI will converge with greater development space and potential, and will certainly benefit more nations.

First, the high-quality development of BRI incorporates the new development concepts that conform to the trend of era. In October 2015, President Xi Jinping proposed the new concepts of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, which effectively promoted China's development towards higher-quality, more efficient, fairer and more sustainable orientation. The new development concepts are not only the wisdom guiding the high-quality development of China's economy, but also a power source for the high-quality development of BRI. The connotation, goals and requirements of the BRI high-quality development are highly compatible with the new development concepts, and they complement one another in practice. The innovation of concepts, institutions and methods, closer coordination between different countries, governments and enterprises, as well as the green, low-carbon, recycling, and sustainable production and life styles, have all been widely acknowledged and accepted. The direction and vision featured with open, inclusive and common development for shared opportunities and outcomes are integral to the idea of BRI high-quality development.

Second, the high-quality development of BRI fits the urgent needs of global sustainable development. The implementation of 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development and the alleviation of global imbalances are not only the common goals of all countries, but also the historical mission of BRI. On the one hand, the BRI is constructed on high-quality infrastructure, which helps break the development bottleneck of many countries. It assists countries in giving full play to resource endowments, better integrate into global supply, industrial and value chains, and achieve connected development. On the other hand, the BRI is committed to strengthening international cooperation and creating more development opportunities for developing countries to help them achieve sustainable development. For example, China and its partners have set up the BRI International Green Development Coalition and the Belt and Road Sustainable Cities Alliance, launched a cooperation initiative on “Accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals for Children through Shared Development.” These efforts have reinforced the sustainable development consensus shared by governments, enterprises and the public along the routes, advanced specific actions to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. 

Third, the high-quality development of BRI responds to the common expectation of the international community to share development opportunities. As a development-oriented international cooperation initiative, the BRI has been actively supported and participated by developing countries. With the BRI high-quality development proceeding, more and more developed countries have become BRI partners via direct participation and third-party market cooperation. As of October 2019, more than three-quarters of the world's emerging economies and developing countries, more than half of the developed world have reached agreements for BRI cooperation with China. Moreover, 14 developed countries signed documents for third-party market cooperation with China, and established cooperation platforms. The BRI has now become a public product widely welcomed by the international community and will create major opportunities for common development and prosperity for all countries in the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends!

Although China and Greece are located at both sides of the Eurasian continent, the friendship between the two partners has a long history, and their exchanges and cooperation have become closer. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 47 years ago, the two sides have developed bilateral relations based on the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit, and have established a long-standing traditional friendship. As both ancient civilizations, Greece is able to understand the rich content of the BRI from a far-reaching historical perspective and actively supports and participates in this major initiative from the very outset. Greece is the first developed European state that signed the Memorandum of Understanding on BRI cooperation with China, and is a model for European countries to carry out mutually beneficial cooperation and jointly build the BRI with China.

In recent years, the coordination and cooperation between China and Greece within the BRI framework have been continuously strengthened, pragmatic cooperation has been advanced, and many new highlights of cooperation have been created. In April this year, Greece became a member of the "China-CEEC Cooperation" mechanism, which injected new impetus into this mechanism. The two partners signed the “2020-2022 cooperation plan on key areas”, which expanded the cooperation fields from transportation, energy, tele-communication to manufacturing, science and technology and finance. In particular, the Piraeus Port project invested by COSCO has become a landmark achievement of the BRI. In 2018, the container throughput of the port reached 4.9 million TEUs, about 5.6 times more than that of 2010. Its global ranking jumped from 93rd in 2010 to 32nd in 2018. The pillar role of Piraeus Port in BRI construction is becoming increasingly prominent.

Today, we are facing a complex international situation, where populism, racism, unilateralism, and protectionism are prevailing. They are bringing formidable challenges to the high-quality development of BRI and the construction of a community with shared future for mankind. As ancient civilizations, China and Greece shoulder the responsibility and possess the wisdom to promote exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations, facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation among nations, and provide solutions to global problems. China and Greece should seize the historical opportunity of BRI high-quality development, enhance political mutual trust, reinforce the public opinion foundation, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation, and continuously push the China-Greece and China-Europe comprehensive strategic partnerships to a new level, and make greater contributions to world peace, stability and development.

Finally, I expect all experts and scholars to focus on the key issues and difficulties of the BRI construction for in-depth discussions and open-minded dialogues, and contribute intelligence to the high-quality development of BRI and China-Greece cooperation.

I wish today’s symposium a complete success. 

Thank you!