The just-concluded 14th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) prime ministers' meeting has once again drawn global attention to China's endeavor to export its surplus industry capacity to meet demand in other countries.
A statement issued after the two-day meeting identifies industry capacity cooperation as one of the priorities of the bloc's move to enhance economic cooperation among members. During bilateral meetings prior to the SCO event, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and his counterparts also emphasized their willingness to further boost industry capacity cooperation.
Since the Chinese premier first proposed the idea last December at a previous SCO prime ministers' meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, China has reached industry capacity cooperation deals with dozens of countries and is exploring prospects for such cooperation with more countries.
The win-win cooperation, apart from opening new ground for Chinese enterprises, is set to help the receiving countries upgrade their respective industry structure and elevate their positions in the global supply chain. SCO member Kazakhstan is a pioneer in conducting industry capacity cooperation with China.
The two countries signed an agreement of industrial capacity cooperation in December 2014 and have reached deals worth about 23 billion U.S. dollars in the past 12 months. "China intends to replicate its industrial capacity cooperation with Kazakhstan with other SCO countries and forge internationally competitive industrial cooperation chains," Premier Li said during the latest SCO meeting, held in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou earlier this week.
The SCO should establish a production capacity cooperation mechanism under which China is willing to provide SCO members with its mature technology, equipment and contracting services, Li said. China can also co-build factories to increase local employment opportunities.
Such cooperation between China and Kazakhstan has proven fruitful with more than 10 projects already or about to be launched, said Li, adding that China would like to promote such experiences among other countries according to their needs.
"Industry capacity cooperation" is undoubtedly a hot topic at the SCO prime ministers' meeting. However, the buzz over the topic is not unique to the SCO meeting. In the past 12 months, China has signed framework agreements or MOUs with 15 countries on conducting industry capacity cooperation, and it is in the midst of consultations with another 33 countries over the issue.
During the same period, China has also made concrete efforts to facilitate industry capacity cooperation on multilateral levels. In January, China and the African Union (AU) signed an MOU on jointly pushing forward improvement of the transportation network in Africa as well as the establishment of infrastructure-related industries.
In July, China and the European Union (EU) agreed to set up a joint investment fund and the two sides also agreed to discuss collaboration in conducting industry capacity cooperation with a third party.
In November, while attending the 18th China-ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Li said China sees ASEAN as an important partner for industry capacity cooperation and his various cooperation proposals were warmly welcomed there.
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