BRI bears fruit around the globe
Rebirth of steel plant in Serbia among examples of initiative’s wide success
When President Xi Jinping visited the Smederevo steel plant in Serbia in June 2016, he received a warm welcome from the workers, who held up large portraits of him in greeting.
Their jobs had been at risk earlier, as the former state-owned steel plant, founded in 1913 and once the epitome of Serbia’s industrial success, was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Light dawned during Xi’s visit, however. The plant was purchased by Chinese steel giant HBIS, and all its 5,000 Serbian employees kept their jobs. The company, renamed Hesteel Serbia after the takeover, was profitable by the following December. Last year, it produced 1.77 million metric tons of steel, the most in its centurylong history.
The rebirth of the Smederevo steel plant is “a story about changes, a story about success and a story about progress”, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said during an inspection of the steel mill in July last year.
The success of the company is a vivid example of how China’s Belt and Road Initiative has benefited people around the world.
In a speech delivered at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan in September 2013, Xi unveiled his flagship Silk Road Economic Belt concept.
The following month, Xi proposed the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in a speech to the Indonesian parliament. The Belt and Road Initiative has blossomed ever since.
After six years of development, the BRI has been translated from a visionary proposal to concrete practices. About 136 countries and 30 international organizations had signed BRI cooperation agreements with China as of the end of August.
From 2013 to 2018, trade between China and other BRI countries surpassed $6 trillion, and China’s investment in those countries exceeded $90 billion.
Last year, Chinese companies invested $15.64 billion in countries cooperating in the BRI, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 percent, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
Since putting forward the BRI six years ago, Xi has frequently promoted it on multiple international occasions.
“Wherever President Xi went, he took the Belt and Road and produced a harvest of practical cooperation there,” State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in March after Xi wrapped up a visit to Italy, Monaco and France.
The trip took Xi to the western end of the ancient Silk Road and boosted Eurasian interconnectivity through the BRI, Wang said.
Juan Carlos Capunay, Peru’s former ambassador to China, said the BRI is the best solution for countries that want to embrace open business environments and build up their economies by joining global groups like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Since the start of the year, Xi has made five overseas visits to a total of eight countries and attended four multilateral gatherings to forge a broader consensus and closer partnerships. Enhancing BRI cooperation is a major topic on his agenda.
During his state visit to Russia in early June, Xi said the two countries should proactively push forward the connection between the Belt and Road and the Eurasian Economic Union and dedicate themselves to promoting the integration of the regional economy.
In Xi’s talks with Kyrgyzstan’s President Sooronbay Jeenbekov and Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon in Bishkek and Dushanbe, the leaders agreed to implement the outcomes of the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and bring high quality to the Belt and Road.
In his speech at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Xi told global leaders that the BRI aims to mobilize more resources, boost interconnectivity, release the driving forces of the economy and encourage the integration of more countries and regions into a global economic network.
A study by the World Bank found that fully implementing deeper policy reforms related to the BRI would lift 32 million people out of moderate poverty, increase global trade by up to 6.2 percent and increase global income by as much as 2.9 percent.
Through participation in the Belt and Road, countries have sped up their development process and improved the livelihoods of their people, Wang Yi said in March.
Aleksandar Duncevic, an electrician at Hesteel Serbia, said that after the Chinese company bought the factory, the biggest change has been that he feels “more certainty and security”.
“Every one of my colleagues is happy with the new management. We no longer feel stressed,” he said.