ISLAMABAD: The Belt and Road Economic and Trade Center (BRETC) will provide Pakistan with a “one stop solution” for joint ventures with Chinese companies, a Pakistani adviser for the newly inaugurated platform said this week.
BRETC was officially launched this week in Changshu City, a key hub in the Yangtze River Delta economic zone in Jiangsu Province. Among the platform’s core objectives is facilitating joint ventures, providing project and trade financing, and helping BRI partner countries access China’s market. The center features dedicated country display zones and liaison offices for key partners, including Pakistan, Jordan, Nigeria and others.
BRETC adviser, Moin Ul Haque, a former Pakistani ambassador to China, said the platform would serve as a “one-stop platform for trade, investment and cultural exchanges, facilitating deeper integration between China and partner countries” like Pakistan.
“The basic purpose of setting up the center was to provide a platform for the countries which are members of Belt and Road for their business connectivity, to improve, to facilitate international trade, to provide a one stop solution for joint ventures with Chinese companies,” he was quoted by Pakistani state news agency APP as saying at the inauguration of BRETC.
The center will provide Belt and Road partner countries with free office space for three years, a free display corner and legal support, and help them set up business branch offices in China.
It will also serve as a platform to enable Belt and Road countries to procure Chinese exports, including commodities and advanced technologies.
Ibrahim Munir, the chairman of the IBI International Group, which initiated and funded BRETC, spoke about the reasons he chose the newly built High-Tech Zone in Changshu as the location for the center.
“It gives you all solutions when it comes to business. It has all kinds of industry – textiles, solar manufacturing, biotech and name of any industry you can have it here,” Munir said.
“And also, the connectivity toward the ports, Changshu port and Suzhou port and Shanghai port. It’s all in one solution, 2ZA3 BXQ and also the incentives, the government policy for the businesses is perfect.”
He said BRETC aimed to connect with over 30 countries and had already engaged with more than 20 to discuss future collaborations and shared visions.
Once put into operation, the center will offer comprehensive solutions spanning bilateral bulk trade, supply chain management, engineering procurement and construction (EPC), transfer-operate-transfer (TOT) projects, production line setup and financing services for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) engagements.
Pakistan hopes for more joint ventures with China through newly inaugurated BRI trade center
https://arab.news/4r2rs
Pakistan hopes for more joint ventures with China through newly inaugurated BRI trade center
- Belt and Road Economic and Trade Center was officially launched this week in Changshu City
- Center features dedicated country display zones and liaison offices for BRI member nations
Rating firm S&P says it won’t rush Iran war downgrades, sees risks for countries like Pakistan
- Agency says it is monitoring indebted energy importers as higher oil prices strain finances
- Gulf economies seen better placed to weather shock, though Bahrain flagged as vulnerable
LONDON: S&P Global said it would not make any knee-jerk sovereign rating cuts following the outbreak of war in the Middle East, but warned on Thursday that soaring oil and gas prices were putting a number of already cash-strapped countries at risk.
The firm’s top analysts said in a webinar that the conflict, which has involved US and Israeli strikes against Iran and Iranian strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, was now moving from a low- to moderate-risk scenario.
Most Gulf countries had enough fiscal buffers, however, to weather the crisis for a while, with more lowly rated Bahrain the only clear exception.
Qatar’s banking sector could also struggle if there were significant deposit outflows in reaction to the conflict, although there was no evidence of such strains at the moment, they said.
“We don’t want to jump the gun and just say things are bad,” S&P’s head global sovereign analyst, Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, said.
The longer the crisis was prolonged, though, “the more difficult it is going to be,” he added.
Sifon-Arevalo said Asia was the second-most exposed region, due to many of its countries being significant Gulf oil and gas importers.
India, Thailand and Indonesia have relatively lower reserves of oil, while the region also had already heavily indebted countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka whose finances would be further hurt by rising energy prices.
“We are closely monitoring these (countries) to see how the credit stories evolve,” Sifon-Arevalo said.
