Shanghai: Shanghai will continue to promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative after already fulfilling a series of exemplary BRI projects over the past decade, a senior Shanghai official said.
“For the next step, Shanghai will build a channel for higher-quality two-way investment and trade, a hub for infrastructure interconnection featuring higher efficiency, a pillar for higher-level professional services, a link for closer people-to-people bonding and a platform for opening-up to the outside world at a higher level,” said Hua Yuan, vice-mayor of Shanghai, during a recent interview with Xinhua News Agency.
All such work will comply with the new trends and requirements of global development, he said.
“Over the past decade, Shanghai has always regarded participating in the high-quality joint construction of the BRI as an important part of building the city into a domestic, large-cycle central node as well as a domestic and international dual-circulation strategic link,” Hua said. “We’ve achieved a series of symbolic, pioneering and exemplary results based on the advantages of the city’s own characteristics and functions,” he said.
Among them, a coal-power integrated project operated by Shanghai Electric Group near the Thar Desert in Pakistan has ensured electricity for 4 million local households, and a dock in Haifa Bay in Israel invested in and built by Shanghai International Port (Group) Co was the first new one in the country in six decades.
By June this year, Shanghai had invested $33.67 billion in countries involved in the BRI, and its total contracted project value in those countries had amounted to $81.13 billion. Meanwhile, its trade in goods had totaled more than $1.5 trillion, according to Hua. In the meantime, by implementing the economic and trade cooperation agreement, Shanghai actively encouraged enterprises from countries involved in the BRI to invest in Shanghai, Hua said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
