China held its “One Belt, One Road Summit” from May 14th to May 15th. It was one of the most important international events Beijing held in 2017. About 1500 delegates including 29 heads of state or government from more than 130 countries and over 70 international organisations attended.
One Belt, One Road is abbreviated as OBOR. The initiative was launched in 2013 by China’s president Xi Jinping. It aims to revive the glorious past of the Silk Road, combining the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
OBOR connects Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa together to promote trade and economic development. It involves 65 countries. According to Oxford Economics, countries in OBOR account for one third of the global GDP and cover around 60% of the world’s population. It was named as the National top level strategy for China and it was the major support for the current 13th five year plan.
In 2015, China Development Bank prepared around USD890 billion for 900 projects within OBOR. According to NBS, from 2013 to 2016, China’s enterprises have direct investment of over USD60 billion on OBOR. President Xi announced an additional USD100 billion will be funded in the OBOR initiative and encourage financial institutions to carry out RMB overseas investments, estimated to be about 300 billion yuan.
According to Chinese media, the OBOR Summit achieved 270 specific results, including international cooperation, policy communication, facilities connections, trade flows, capital circulation, and people connections. There’s no doubt that the Chinese media were fully on board with the agenda.
The Chinese media has also been making the most of the contrast between China’s OBOR, and U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade protectionism views. Trump sent a U.S. delegation to OBOR, led by the White House adviser Matt Pottinger.
It is still too early to see the real impact from OBOR yet. We will update our subscribers with more information on OBOR and its influences on aluminum industry in our Aluminum Monthly Report.
As a side point however, we can report that many factories were ordered to stay closed before and during the Summit, including aluminum and carbon plants. Beijing enjoyed blue skies during the conference.
Picture Reference: https://www.ejiltalk.org/chinas-one-belt-one-road-initiative-can-a-bilaterally-negotiated-globalization-2-0-internalize-human-rights-labor-and-environmental-standards/
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