Hong Kong to hold forum on Belt and Road Initiative
The General Administration of Customs Commissioners Office in Tianjin, Tianjin Customs, Hohhot Customs, Manzhouli Customs and Urumqi Customs signed a memorandum of cooperation in Tianjin on September 1, to strengthen coordination with each other on customs clearance facilitation to serve the needs of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The five customs jurisdictions vowed to make better use of the ports in Tianjin, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, and step up the economic cooperation among the three places.
Cooperation among the customs areas can effectively lower the costs of logistics and improve the efficiency of the logistics industry, in particular between China, Mongolia and Russia.
Tianjin connects the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and is the connecting point of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor and the New Eurasian Continental Bridge. Tianjin Customs actively promotes the merging of these belts, roads and bridges by supporting the railway-sea multimodal transport.
Tianjin Customs handled 182,000 tons of cargo from January to July, up 50.4 percent year-on-year.
Xiao Jun, GAC's commissioner in Tianjin, said that the Memorandum of Cooperation instills a concept that the five customs areas should serve each other, and make joint efforts to promote the economic and trade development of the northeast, northwest and north China.
The Belt and Road Accreditation Development International Seminar was held in Beijing on September 4, attracting 29 representatives from 14 countries along the Belt and Road routes, including Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Iran.
"Accreditation services have broad prospects in the Belt and Road construction," said Wang Fengqing, director of China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment, on the forum. "China's accreditation agencies will continue to actively take part in international multilateral mutual recognition systems, and further extend bilateral and multilateral cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road routes."
The Certification and Accreditation Administration of China (CAA) published a vision and action plan on advancing accreditation services in the Belt and Road construction in June 2015, proposing to accelerate the multilateral and bilateral mutual recognition of certification and accreditation, as well as the examining and inspection certificates in the world. They also suggested that countries should make common and consistent standards in certification and accreditation in the areas where they share common interests.
Liu Weijin, deputy director of CAA, said the CAA will strengthen its studies on the certification and accreditation works in the countries along the Belt and Road routes, so as to carry out the vision and action plan.
The seminar lasts for two weeks, providing attendees with enough time to carry out in-depth discussions on specific problems.
The China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment has signed bilateral cooperation agreements with 11 countries along the Belt and Road routes, and has established cooperation channels with relevant countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkey, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Pakistan.
A forum on Belt and Road Initiative co-organized by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) will open here next Monday, focusing on infrastructure and ASEAN opportunities, organizers said on Monday.
Under the theme "From Vision to Action," the forum is expected to attract over 2,500 senior government officials as well as representatives of international institutions, business leaders from countries and regions along the Belt and Road, according to the HKTDC.
Numerous projects and infrastructure construction related to the Belt and Road Initiative have been set in motion, reflecting that the cooperation framework for global development have taken shape, Vincent Lo, chairman of the HKTDC told a press meeting.
The forum is expected to become an exchange platform promoting more concrete cooperation in infrastructure, commerce and trade, especially in the area of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), he said.
Dialogue with policymakers, a series of panel discussions covering financing, dispute settlement and entrepreneurship as well as business matching meetings will be arranged during the summit, according to the HKTDC.
This will be the second time for such a forum to be held in Hong Kong. The first one hosted by the HKSAR government was held in May 2016.