China calls on CEEC to join Silk Road project

Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called on China and central and eastern European countries to combine their own development with the building of a New Silk Road Economic Belt and other proposals of major international cooperation.

Wang met visiting national coordinators from the 16 central and eastern European countries during the Third National Coordinators' Meeting for Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries on Tuesday.

China and central and eastern European countries are witnessing a strong development momentum and will focus their cooperation on large infrastructure and logistics projects, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Chao said at the meeting.

According to Chinese statistics, bilateral trade between China and central and eastern European countries increased 10.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, while investment from central and eastern European countries in China grew 38.9 percent.

The cooperation between China and central and eastern European countries has achieved much in large infrastructure projects, including the construction of roads and power plants in Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Montenegro, the vice-foreign minister said.

China also sent working groups to countries in the region, including Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia, to study the feasibility of potential construction projects for railways and ports.

However, how to fund these projects is one major challenge for the cooperation, and China and the countries are exploring new ways to tackle that problem, said Liu Haixing, director-general of the Department of European Affairs of Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Wang Chao said China encourages financial institutions to participate in these large projects.

China has accelerated its cooperation with the region in recent years, launching the Secretariat for Cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European Countries in September 2012.

A $10 billion special credit line is also operational and China has sent more than 30 trade promotion delegations to the region.

In the first 10 months of 2013, trade between China and central and eastern European countries reached $52.1 billion, surpassing the $50 billion recorded for the whole of 2012, but accounted for only 10 percent of trade between China and the European Union.

While Chinese investment in central and eastern Europe topped $800 million in 2010, compared with almost nothing in the early 2000s, the region attracted less Chinese investment than Sweden alone, according to the Warsaw-based Central and Eastern European Development Institute.

Liu stressed that the cooperation between China and central and eastern European countries is "an important component of the whole China-European Union cooperation".

"The improvement of cooperation between China and these countries will also improve the whole level of China-EU relations," said Liu.

Given the huge difference of development levels among the 28 EU member states, Liu said "China hopes for a balanced level of development among these countries, which is conducive to the whole China-EU cooperation."

On Tuesday, officials from China and central and eastern European countries also launched the China-CEEC Cooperation official website, which offers information on cooperation between China and those countries.