Guangxi harnesses unique geographical advantages to drive regional opening-up, BRI connectivity

Guided by the instructions of Chinese President Xi Jinping, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has implemented a more proactive development strategy driven by further opening-up, including by adopting an all-round opening-up and development pattern centering on the high-level construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC).

Aerial photo taken on July 30, 2020 shows a view of the Qinzhou terminal of the Beibu Gulf Port in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Xu Zhiyan)

Guangxi has unique geographical advantages as it is situated near the sea, rivers, and an international border. Its six international ports are open to ten ASEAN countries and high-quality ports are scattered along its 1,600 kilometers of coastlines.

Back on April 19, 2017, Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, came to the Tieshan Port Public Wharf in Beihai city, Guangxi to inspect the operation of the wharf. He was pleased to learn that the annual cargo throughput of the Tieshan port had surged from more than 1 million tons to over 20 million tons within just a few years.

Noting that port construction and the port economy play a major role in the construction of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Xi stressed the necessity to excel in building, managing and operating ports at the Beibu Gulf to facilitate the development of Guangxi, the construction of the Belt and Road, and promote further opening-up and cooperation with the support of first-class facilities, technologies, management and services.

“The Belt and Road Initiative accords with the will of the people, and we should advance opening-up and development under the framework,” Xi told workers at the port.

Under Xi’s guidance, Guangxi has grasped the opportunity to advance the high-level construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC).

With the new transportation artery, southwestern provincial-level regions in China, such as Chongqing and Guizhou, will become more closely connected with ASEAN countries through the coastal and border ports of Guangxi while being linked with Central Asia and Europe to the north via China-Europe freight trains, forming a complete Belt and Road loop.

The sea-rail intermodal train routes of the ILSTC now cover 14 provincial-level regions throughout China, compared with only four in 2017, while the annual number of train trips has moreover risen from 178 to 6,117, with an average annual increase of 142 percent.

In April 2017, Xi also inspected the China-ASEAN Information Harbor (CAIH) in Nanning city, Guangxi, said Lu Dongliang, chairman of CAIH.

In September 2017, the construction of the Chinese-ASEAN Commerce and Trade Platform was initiated, which has expanded to cover 13 border trade sites in three cities in Guangxi – namely, Chongzuo, Dongxing and Baise – along with 16 port service centers, nine settlement banks and two third-party payment companies, with the platform having witnessed a transaction volume of over 100 billion yuan ($14.91 billion).

“We are endeavoring to build an international information and communications hub and computing power center oriented towards ASEAN to promote digital interconnectivity and advance the construction of the Digital Silk Road,” Lu said.

The Beibu Gulf Port has significantly improved customs clearance efficiency as well as management and operations. “The number of container liner routes at the port has increased to 67; and its annual container throughput has climbed to 6.01 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), with a double-digit growth rate,” said Huang Wuhai, executive deputy director of the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone Planning and Construction Management Office.