China puts links with central and eastern Europe on the fast track
Beijing woos region’s leaders with high-speed tour as it looks to join development bank and pledges boosts for investment and infrastructure
China is scaling up its economic presence in central and eastern Europe, pledging to boost investment in the region and hoping to join the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development next month.
The heads of 16 countries from the region, who have been visiting China for the past two days, yesterday joined Premier Li Keqiang for a high-speed railway trip from Suzhou to Shanghai during which Li vowed to step up cooperation on infrastructure.
Beijing has been strengthening its engagement with Europe in recent months, with President Xi Jinping visiting Britain in October, when London gave its support to the yuan’s inclusion in the “supranational” reserve currency of the International Monetary Fund and Chinese efforts to reach a free-trade pact with the European Union.
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In talks with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda yesterday, Xi called on the two countries to explore using Poland as a hub for logistical cooperation with central and eastern Europe, and for cooperation over the “One Belt, One Road” initiative.
“We would like to see Poland push the ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative to connect with the EU development strategy,” Xi said, state-run CCTV reported.
Hungary said it would issue government bonds denominated in yuan with the Bank of China in the hope of attracting more Asian investors.
A consortium led by China Railway Group has been awarded a 10 billion yuan (HK$12.1 billion) contract to build the Hungarian section of a railway linking Budapest with Serbia’s Belgrade.