Belt and Road Initiative efforts start to pay off

Nearly two years after President Xi Jinping proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives, Nantong and its trading partners along the routes have started delivering results.

In 2014, Nantong, in Jiangsu province, signed service outsourcing contracts worth $667 million, which doubled the contract volume of 2013.

The city undertook seven engineering projects in India, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with each project worth at least $30 million. They included a petrochemical project worth $115 million in India and a barrack construction project worth $150 million in Sri Lanka.

Nantong's overseas investment projects in countries and regions along the routes have improved in both size and quality. Last year, the city had nine overseas projects that cost more than $30 million each, including a soap production project, with nearly $300 million in investment from Nantong.

Situated at the intersection of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Nantong was one of the first Chinese cities to take action in response to the national strategy.

How to seize the opportunities brought about by the initiatives and how to best use Nantong's advantages is an important subject that the local government has been thinking about, said Ding Dawei, Party chief of the city.

Cooperation between Nantong and countries along the routes goes back to the late 19th century, when a large number of Nantong businessmen opened schools in Southeast Asia and sold textile products to the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Today, as economic and trade relations between Nantong and those countries deepen, cooperation is more diversified and ranges from establishing trading centers and production bases to recruitment of overseas professionals, technologies and brands to build research and development institutes and marketing networks.

Zhongtian Technology, a manufacturer of cable systems, set up offices in many countries to help form its international sales network and built optical fiber production bases in India and Uzbekistan.

The company signed 11 contracts with countries and regions along the routes last year, with each contract worth at least $10 million.

In recent years, Nantong has devoted itself to economic transformation efforts and industrial upgrading, which was reflected in its cooperation with its partners.

Overseas investments are shifting from textiles, garment and light industries to real estate development and emerging industries such as offshore equipment and new energy. Outsourcing services are also extending from construction to equipment installation, port engineering and sewage treatment.

At a May meeting to discuss further implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, Ding said Nantong should take more advantage of its geographical location as a port city and integrate resources both on land and at sea to restructure industries while improving ecology and quality of life for residents.

Nantong has improved its infrastructure and built five first-class national open ports as well as the Suzhou-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge and Chongming-Qidong Bridge. Construction work on Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze Bridge is underway.

The Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge designed for both rail and highway traffic and when complete will boast the largest span in the world. It is expected to reduce travel time between the two cities from three hours to about one hour. About 25 percent of the work has been completed to date and the bridge is expected to open in 2019.

A long stretch of beach in Tongzhou Bay at the eastern end of the city is home to Binhai industrial park, where infrastructure, including roads, factories and office buildings, has been under construction for the past three years. In March, development of the park was upgraded to a State-level project.

The park includes an education zone that has attracted branches from several universities. To date, six prestigious universities and four research institutes have moved to the zone.

The Shanghai Maritime University has started building R&D and student employment practice bases, as well as water training and yacht training centers in the zone.

The Nantong government has encouraged local companies to expand their businesses overseas, particularly in countries and regions along the routes of the Belt and Road Initiative. The destinations are highly complementary to Nantong's economy, according to Ding.

Nantong Mengsheng Shoes Co set up a factory in Burma in 2011 and now is planning to build a second.

Due to its high-quality manufacturing and good reputation overseas, the company received an order for 4 million pairs of shoes from famous Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo at the beginning of this year.

As countries and regions along the routes have different investment environments, the Nantong Bureau of Commerce is learning more about the different industrial structures, market demands and investment policies to help local companies make solid, informed overseas investments.

The bureau said it would guide companies involved in the culture, science, agriculture and real estate industries, to explore overseas markets and support companies to introduce advanced overseas technologies to improve their innovation capacities.

The city government also plans to accelerate the construction of industrial clusters in India and Cambodia.

"Nantong boasts a good geographical location and cooperation foundations, so it should and will play a bigger role during the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative," Ding said.

Contact the writersthrough dingcongrong@chinadaily.com.cn

Nantong is taking advantage of its coastal location to restructure industry and improve lifestyles. Bei Duomin / for China Daily