China keen to boost intra-border trade
ASEAN will play a leading role in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as the economic powerhouse seeks to enhance intra-border trade with the region, a Chinese official said.
Liu Zhengdong, vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Guangxi Committee, said the Chinese government has designated Guangxi as an important staging post in the development of its Key Border Region, due to its bordering of Asean by land and sea as a geographical advantage.
Key Border Region refers to a special sub-regional economic hub accorded with special privileges and policies to enhance intra-border trade between China and Asean countries such as Brunei, Laos and Vietnam, Zhengdong said.
The vice chairman cited Guangxi’s Dongxing Experimental Zone and Cross-border Cooperation Zone as among the key border regions in developing the BRI.
He said an Asean-oriented transportation hub with port and railway infrastructure would be constructed in Dongxing city to conveniently connect China and Asean.
Located at the most southwestern coastline of China’s mainland, it is the only city with direct sea and land access to Asean countries.
“Dongxing is the major port that lies just 100 metres away from Vietnam’s Mong Cai port and is the only port in China bordering Vietnam by land and sea. This is an important gateway for cross-border economic and trade cooperation,” Zhengdong said in an interview during the recent 13th China-Asean Expo (CAEXPO) in Nanning, China.
He said an extensive logistics and route from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and the Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh to these border economic cooperation zones will be established to reduce travel time and transportation expenses.
“This cross-border economic region will form a new breakthrough in business logistics and one of those breakthroughs is the implementation of a ‘two countries, one inspection’ model to speed up the integration and facilitation of regional custom clearance,” he added.
Zhengdong said that through this initiative, Asean countries including Brunei are granted special financial taxation, investment, trade and industrial dispensations.
The Guangxi Statistics Bureau in its 2015 report said the total value of trade with Asean was US$47.7 billion, an increase of 15 per cent year-on-year.
