Local govts eager to support new strategy

'One Belt, One Road' initiative expected to boost growth

Twenty out of 31 mainland provincial-level governments have clarified their positioning and plans in their support of the country's "One Belt, One Road" initiative, according to a media report Wednesday, underlining local governments' eagerness to embrace the opportunities from the initiative to bolster their economic growth.

A total of 16 provincial-level governments, including those in Northwest China's Qinghai and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region as well as Southwest China's Chongqing and Yunnan, have been designated as the core areas covered under the One Belt, One Road initiative, news portal cnstock.com reported on Wednesday.

All of the 16 regions have mapped out their plans to support the initiative, the report said.

Four other provincial-level regions including Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China have also showed their willingness to be integrated into the One Belt, One Road strategy, and have drafted specific plans, it said.

"One reason for their desire to be part of the initiative is that it could help to speed up infrastructure construction and enhance trade and economic exchanges with neighboring countries, thus boosting local growth," Zhang Jianping, a research fellow with the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under the National Development and Reform Commission, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The One Belt, One Road strategy, which refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, was proposed by President Xi Jinping in late 2013.

It was designed to strengthen infrastructure as well as economic and trade ties with countries and regions along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

"The development of the country's central and western regions is currently faster than that in the eastern regions and trade growth with countries along the Silk Road is brisker than with traditional partners such as the US and Europe. With the One Belt, One Road strategy, the trend will continue," Zhang said.

Many provincial-level governments have pledged large-scale infrastructure construction projects in their ongoing or just-concluded local annual legislative and advisory sessions in a bid to implement the One Belt, One Road strategy, according to media reports.

For instance, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region announced it would strengthen connections with neighboring countries in 2015, with financing assistance coming from the $40 billion Silk Road Fund, which was set up by the central government in November 2014.

Guangxi's government work report, which was unveiled Tuesday, mentioned several infrastructure projects, including a high-speed railway to connect Guangxi's capital city of Nanning and Baise, a city in the province that borders Vietnam and serves as a traffic hub connecting China with Southeast Asian countries. Construction of the railway will be completed this year.

Guangxi set its GDP growth target at 8 percent for 2015, a figure that is likely to be above the country's economic growth target, which will be officially unveiled at the national legislative and advisory sessions in March. Analysts expect the national target will be around 7 percent.

Several provincial-level regions in central and western China are expected to report faster economic growth compared with other regions this year, partly because of the Silk Road initiative, Zhang said.

Northwest China's Shaanxi Province plans to apply to the central government to establish a Silk Road free trade zone (FTZ), the report from cnstock.com said.

An FTZ in western China, if established, could play a great role in supporting economic growth and the country's opening-up strategy, He Maochun, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

In December 2014, China approved three new FTZs in Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian, following the launch of the first FTZ in Shanghai in September 2013.

However, no FTZ in the country's central and western areas has yet been announced.

A raft of preferential policies to be rolled out for western China will help the country to open wider to Asian countries bordering China's western regions, which will boost economic exchanges, trade and investment, He said.

The latest data from the General Administration of Customs showed that emerging markets saw better performance than traditional markets in export growth for China in 2014.

China's foreign trade with Vietnam grew 27.7 percent year-on-year in 2014, far higher than the 3.4 percent average growth in China's foreign trade.

According to media reports, China's central government has approved general guidelines for the country's One Belt, One Road initiative, and they are expected to be announced soon.