“It is the wind that stimulates trade.” German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once commented. Propelled by the trade winds, international trade began to flourish many centuries ago.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DBqCCmV_Mhw&list=PLjpKjfq_RLGdW0CDMFbt0qKOieFRiQfSn&index=16&pp=iAQB
Chinese admiral Zheng He made seven westward voyages between 1405 and 1433. This coincided with an unprecedented upsurge in China’s maritime trade. Centuries later, riding a wave of China’s reform and opening up, initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the international trade bloomed.
Erik Solheim, Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations stated in the interview, “The opening-up of China around 1980 was probably the most significant economic development in the entire world in the last century. What you see in the prosperous rapidly-moving, dynamic people-friendly China of today, came with the reform and opening up”.
Chinese Entrepreneurs Expanding Businesses Abroad
Tracing back to the old days in South Africa, Wu Shaokang said it was very difficult. He felt lonely since he was unfamiliar with the city, the business climate, and the people. Even more unfortunately, his business was destroyed by 1998 financial crisis. Facing such challenges, he decided to use the first pot of gold by selling Chinese home appliances to invest in real estate. Now Wu is a well-known representative of Chinese entrepreneurs in South Africa and owns seven shopping centers as well as several factories in South Africa.
“Gradually, South Africa has become more and more friendly to Chinese businessmen. Especially if you operate a factory here nowadays, it also offers you a lot of concessions.” Wu Shaokang was glad that the overseas business environment for Chinese businessmen is becoming better and better.
Zhang Qinwei had a similar experience in Dubai, from foreign trade to investment in real estate. Zhang still remembers the first time he knew Dubai. One day he read newspaper and occasionally found there was a city called Dubai in the Middle East, which had high trade volume with China. He was attracted to Dubai in 2001.
“We built the UAE Chinese mobile phone wholesale market, helping four to five hundred Shenzhen enterprises to go overseas. In Dubai, the market has been built from scratch, from small to giant, and become the largest trade transit station in the Middle East and Africa.” Zhang Qinwei has become the President of Canton Chamber of Commerce in the UAE.
Chinese Brands With Growing Popularity Overseas
Over the decades, due to the high-quality and reasonable price, Guangdong companies have become popular not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa and Central Asia. Plenty of Huawei, Xiaomi, DJI stores were opened in the shopping centers.
“This is the flagship Huawei store for South Africa at this point, very popular with our locals and international tourists here in Sandton,” said by the employee in Huawei store in South Africa.
BYD, Haval, Chery, Changan, Geely…Chinese automakers have gradually captured large shares of markets in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East as well as Africa.
“China, for instance, now has moved straight into electric cars. 60% of the global market for electric cars is in China. BYD from Shenzhen was just passing Tesla becomes the biggest producer of electric cars in the world.” Erik Solheim was amazed by the growing speed of Chinese electric cars.
Now China is the world’s top vehicle exporter, driven by the Belt and Road Initiative. Across mountains and seas, connecting each other, the BRI is closely collaborative establishing international transportation arteries and expediting regional integration processes.
The BRI Heading Towards the Sustainability
Without doubts, green is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese companies are expediting steps to go global, fueled by the rapid expansion of the tech-intensive green products. Digital energy is one of the products.
Since 2016, Huawei has begun to cooperate with Kazakhstan Railway. Huawei designed the Data Center solution for Kazakhstan’s Rail operator KTZ and TransTelecom, which is responsible for KTZ national railway communication network. “Through intelligent iPower and iCooling management, we can deploy the use of these energy resources, more energy-saving,” introduced by the employee of Huawei Technologies Kazakhstan Co., Ltd.
On the road to being greener, Chinese young entrepreneurs found their new opportunities. Nan Yi, born in 1990, established a company focusing on green energies in 2015.
As the Chairman of Universal Energy Co., Ltd, Nan Yi said that “We have been developing overseas for almost eight years now, mainly in the Belt and Road countries. We plan to develop new energy such as photovoltaic, wind power along the BRI and make new layout of energy storage power stations in European market.”
As the Belt and Road Initiative is embracing its next golden decade, it is expected increasingly Chinese entrepreneurs and companies will go globally to enhance investment and cooperation in the future.
Company Name: Southern Finance Omnimedia Corp.
Contact Person: Yulai Yang
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Country: China
Website: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DBqCCmV_Mhw&list=PLjpKjfq_RLGdW0CDMFbt0qKO…