The belt and road in Eastern Europe.
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China Deepens Ties with Eurasian Countries
2016-06-24 16:46:04 | CRIENGLISH.com | Web Editor: Liang Tao
By Xu Qinduo
It takes eight hours from Serbia's capital of Belgrade to Budapest, the capital of Hungary by train which runs at a speed of some 40 kilometers per hour. In China, the travel time of a similar distance by high speed rail is two hours, such as from Shanghai to the neighboring city of Ningbo. That's part of the reason why Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to Serbia as China is helping modernizing the rail system that will reduce the travel time between Belgrade and Budapest to some three hours.
President Xi's visit to Serbia and Poland in Europe and Uzbekistan since last week can be viewed in the backdrop of the famous One Belt One Road initiative. The OBOR aims to build stronger land connectivity through Central Asia to Europe as well as by sea route through Southeast Asia, Africa to Europe.
The latest trip can also be seen as an effort by Beijing to strengthen its relationship with Europe by investing more in Central and East European Countries or CEEC. Under the "16+1" framework, the 16 CEEC countries and China have met and worked on bilateral ties for years.
If you take a look at the global community, China is probably the only country that possesses the capability to commit huge investment in infrastructure construction and trade. And that's what the Chinese President's trip was all about.
For Serbia, Xi Jinping's arrival was regarded as the beginning of Spring after a long Winter. Everything will blossom after the visit, said Serbian officials. It's the first time that a Chinese state leader has visited the Central European country in 30 years. For Belgrade, the visit is historic not only in being the first, but also the positive changes expected to be brought about to the country of seven million.
In anticipating the Mr. Xi's arrival, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic told China Radio International that, "Serbia will sign 24 cooperative agreements with China, such a number has never been the case during any world leaders' visit to our country."
He said China's investment to Serbia is of great importance, and could solve a variety of problems of Serbian companies from the past, which the country could hardly deal with without the Chinese side.
What sounding a bit funny is that, according to Mr. Nikolic, "many countries already envy Serbia" and their presidents have asked whether they could visit during Xi's stay here, so they could arrange a meeting.
And indeed, China is offering a hand in resolving Serbian companies' problems. Beijing invested 46-million-euro to purchase Serbia's century-old steel plant Smederevo and is to transform the plant into one of the most competitive firms in Europe with its latest technologies.
The deal may be just one of numerous investments by Chinese companies around the world. But it's critical to a small country like Serbia. The plant employs 5,050 people and all the jobs are kept. Compared to a loss of 113 million US dollars last year, the plant will receive some 300 million dollars investment from the Chinese side.
As for the nation, a Reuters report says Belgrade believes the deal is expected to "push Serbia's growth to up to 4 percent in 2017, more than double the official forecast for this year."
During his stop in Poland, the largest trading partner of China in the region, President Xi witnessed a visual and emotional moment when an express freight train steadily rolled into a cargo terminal in Warsaw. The China Railway Express arrived from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province after a 13-day journey. The new train service will facilitate Poland to export more agricultural products to a huge Chinese market, like milk, meat and apples.
Polish officials say some 20 freight trains run between China and Poland each week carrying electronics, food stuffs, alcohol and car parts. The journey takes less than two weeks, which creates a huge advantage compared to the 40-day transit by sea.
Poland sits in the center of Europe and nearly all such trans-continental trains from China go through Poland. Taking advantage of its strategic position, Poland says it was discussing "massive investments" with Beijing.
In Uzbekistan the last leg of President Xi's Eurasian trip, he witnessed the opening of a 19.2-kilometer railway tunnel that brings Uzbekistan's populous Ferghana Valley with the rest of the country. The tunnel, the biggest Chinese-led project in the region, is also said to be the largest of its kind in Central Asia.
President Xi addressed Uzbekistan’s parliament, the first ever given by a foreign leader. During his speech, rounds of enthusiastic, standing applause were registered. Xi told them that “this unique tunnel will become an important link in the international, China-Central Asia-Europe railway transit corridor.”
His Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov expressed warm gratitude to China that “I want to tell you that we have a proverb: ‘You know a friend in times of hardship.’ China is indeed such a friend that has lent a hand at a difficult time.” Uzbek economy is going through a challenging time as, Russia, one of its major trade partners, suffers from biting sanctions from Western countries.
The Uzbek trip also brought Xi to the gathering of leaders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries. One key agenda of the summit is to officially grant membership to both India and Pakistan, a welcoming move to cement stability and peace in this region.
A set of pipelines, roads and railways have already been built up to link China to countries in Central Asia and Europe. For example, Yiwu is connected to Madrid, Zhengzhou to Hamburg, Lianyungang to Rotterdam, Chongqing to Duisburg.
Xi's latest trip presents as a solid step of more connectivity along route of Silk Road. Every country that falls into the grand program is expected to benefit from the Chinese initiative.
....I have seen no proof of this 18% rate of interest.....Pakistani members disagreed with that too.......Don't know form where our Indian friends bring this number........from propaganda office? 
