Eyes cast towards maritime economy for boost in trade
The city of Xiamen in coastal Fujian province will deploy more shipping, port, e-commerce, capital and other service resources to boost goods trade and the marine economy with BRICS countries, officials say.
As the five BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — hold the bloc’s summit in Xiamen from Sept 3 to 5, the city will also organise a consumer goods exhibition of BRICS countries and an e-commerce forum to stimulate trade between the trading partners.
Han Jingyi, the vice-mayor of Xiamen, said the city is speeding up the upgrade of its trade structure, including expanding the service trade and crossborder e-commerce business to ship more products to other BRICS markets.
The value of trade between Xiamen and other BRICS economies rose 60 per cent year-on-year to 23 billion yuan ($3.42 billion) in the first half of 2017, partly due to momentum given by the Belt and Road Initiative.
The city mainly shipped computers, articles for daily use, garments, machinery and electrical appliances to BRICS countries between January and June, while BRICS countries exported consumer, agricultural, energy and medical products to the city.
Supported by more than 150 berths, and 143 international and domestic container shipping routes, Xiamen’s trade and economic ties with BRICS countries have surged over the past five years, especially in shipping.
The city has shipping routes linking it with Vladivostok in Russia, Durban and Cape Town in South Africa and Mundra in India. On these routes shipping companies such as COSCO Shipping Line Co Ltd and Maersk Line serve a number of long-term international customers, helping maintain sound business operations.
“We expect that total handling capacity will exceed 10 million TEUs, or 20-foot equivalent units, by the end of this year,” Han said.
The Yuanhai Container Terminal in Xiamen, set up in 2014, is China’s first fully automated container terminal. Its entire work flow is controlled by an intelligent system, making it more efficient than most other ports. It has annual throughput of between 780,000 and 910,000 TEUs.
BRICS countries invested in 43 projects in sectors such as manufacturing and shoemaking in Xiamen and the city has invested in 11 projects such as infrastructure and agricultural businesses in these economies. It has set up trade co-ordination offices in Mumbai and Johannesburg over the past two years.
Dong Liwan, a professor at Shanghai Maritime University, said Xiamen’s well-developed maritime research and development facilities such as the APEC Marine Sustainable Development Centre and the Third Institute of Oceanography of the State Oceanic Administration also offer growth opportunities to BRICS countries to develop a strong blue economy.
The marine economy, once dominated by shipping, fishing, aquaculture, and oil and gas, now takes in sectors such as marine chemistry, biomedicine, ocean power, seawater use, marine tourism, ocean engineering and construction.
“The oceans are strategically important to BRICS countries,” Dong said. “The development potential lies in the oceans. It will help solve employment problems and deal with the issue of raw material shortages, thereby spurring economic activity, if sustainably developed.”
Xing Houyuan, a member of the expert committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Beijing, said: “All BRICS countries are big marine powers, but as yet they are not strong.”
A key reason for this is that they are still relatively weak in technological innovation, she said. Technology accounts for about 50 per cent of the marine economy in China, compared with 70 or 80 per cent in some developed countries.
In early August China called on BRICS countries to work together to increase intra-BRICS investment and improve the capacity of services related to investment amid uncertainties in the global economic recovery.
“Other moves include launching an e-commerce co-operation initiative, approving guidelines for intellectual property rights, endorsing the outlines for investment facilitation and producing a framework on improving the economic and technical ties among BRICS countries,” said Zhang Shaogang, director-general of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Commerce.