The Great Game Changer: Belt and Road Intiative (BRI; OBOR)

[cirr]

30 days saved! New rail route speeds up cargo delivery from China to Russia

A new cargo rail route linking the administrative centre of China's northeastern city of Harbin to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg opened on Thursday.

The first Harbin-Russia international cargo train loaded with containers arrived for customs checks with the TransContainer company in the fourth largest city in Russia.

According to the Vice Director of the TransContainer branch on the Sverdlovsk Railway Maxim Smirnov, "the time on the road amounted to 10 days," which is four times faster than previously possible. Previously, a delivery of goods from southern China to Russia had to be transported mainly by sea via the port of Dalian, which takes on average 40 days.


[InKunming--China]

Railway authorities in China's far western Xinjiang region on Wednesday launched a cargo train service linking its regional capital of Urumqi with Moscow.

The one more cargo train service westward can help boost the development of the northwestern autonomous region, a "core area" of the Silk Road economic belt, said Liu Jianxin, vice governor of Xinjiang, at the launch ceremony.
Since March 2014, Xinjiang has opened cargo train service to Kazakhstan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey and also Chelyabinsk of Russia.

The first train, loaded with 1,300 tonnes of PVC, left Urumqi at 6:15 p.m. and is scheduled to reach Moscow more than 4,000 km away in about ten days. It will return with wood pulp from Russia.

Wang Hongxin, chairman of Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical Co., Ltd., said the cargo service can help drive the company's annual sales of PVC by 10 percent.

By the second half of the year, more than three cargo trains will run between Xinjiang and the destinations in Russia and also central and western Asia per week.

The trains can then transport 50 billion yuan (8.1 billion U.S. dollars) of cargo a year, Liu said.

http://en.kunming.cn/index/content/2...nt_3933074.htm

 

[TaiShang]

30 days saved! New rail route speeds up cargo delivery from China to Russia

A new cargo rail route linking the administrative centre of China's northeastern city of Harbin to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg opened on Thursday.

The first Harbin-Russia international cargo train loaded with containers arrived for customs checks with the TransContainer company in the fourth largest city in Russia.

According to the Vice Director of the TransContainer branch on the Sverdlovsk Railway Maxim Smirnov, "the time on the road amounted to 10 days," which is four times faster than previously possible. Previously, a delivery of goods from southern China to Russia had to be transported mainly by sea via the port of Dalian, which takes on average 40 days.


[InKunming--China]

Railway authorities in China's far western Xinjiang region on Wednesday launched a cargo train service linking its regional capital of Urumqi with Moscow.

The one more cargo train service westward can help boost the development of the northwestern autonomous region, a "core area" of the Silk Road economic belt, said Liu Jianxin, vice governor of Xinjiang, at the launch ceremony.
Since March 2014, Xinjiang has opened cargo train service to Kazakhstan, Georgia, Iran, Turkey and also Chelyabinsk of Russia.

The first train, loaded with 1,300 tonnes of PVC, left Urumqi at 6:15 p.m. and is scheduled to reach Moscow more than 4,000 km away in about ten days. It will return with wood pulp from Russia.

Wang Hongxin, chairman of Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical Co., Ltd., said the cargo service can help drive the company's annual sales of PVC by 10 percent.

By the second half of the year, more than three cargo trains will run between Xinjiang and the destinations in Russia and also central and western Asia per week.

The trains can then transport 50 billion yuan (8.1 billion U.S. dollars) of cargo a year, Liu said.

http://en.kunming.cn/index/content/2...nt_3933074.htm

 

[TaiShang]

Russia and China Will Join Europe to the Eurasian Landmass

The European peninsula will be drawn into the embrace of the Heartland as Russia and China work out their natural destiny as Eurasia

The author is an Italian industrialist and Honorary member of the Academy of Science of the Institut de France with long experience in the Middle East. He wrote this article especially for RI.

In a now famous speech delivered at the 2007 Munich Conference on Security, Vladimir Putin outlined his foreign policy in no uncertain terms: Russia would not tolerate being encircled by the Atlantic Alliance, and there is no disputing his claim that the network of sensors, radars, and missiles installed around the Federation is not there to manage "instability in the greater Middle East”. He believed then, and still does now, that the international system should be based on laws endorsed by the United Nations and other global agencies, rather than on NATO and the EU, as he stated to the Italian Minister of Defense at the time.

The coalitions of the willing that supported US and Saudi actions in the First and Second Gulf Wars, wiping out a traditional Russian ally, Iraq, resulted in unexpected blowback, turning the oil region into a "no man's land".

For the Russian President, American unipolarity signals a strategic void at the edge of the empire, with incalculable consequences for future strategists, even the United States.

In Munich, Putin made clear his desire to achieve a reduction of missile systems, to be later extended to other players. Bilateral negotiations would be carried out under UN auspices, not delegated to regional alliances. The "conventionalization" of confrontation would lessen the nuclear threat and allow for significant reductions in military spending, ending the post-cold war confrontation and reducing clashes between the peripheries - or Rimland - of the former opposing blocs.

Emphasizing the destructive effects of a unipolar world, Russia maintains that no one power can control the world, but can only generate polarizations leading to a terrible war. For Russia, the future must be multipolar, all the more so that the US has lost its geo-economic primacy.

Globalizing must end. But what about Europe? Will it wait for the crumbs of the TTIP, hoping a still secret treaty with the United States will allow it to grow its economy, or will it finally begin to think big?

After harsh comments on US behavior, in Munich Putin said that pressure to adopt “democracy”, including by NGOs, constituted interference and produced the opposite effect, putting weak States at the mercy of expensive international aid, but also of multinational companies that increase social tensions and in some cases, encourage Islamist terrorism.

In Munich, as currently, it took political courage to link global economic disasters, globalization, unipolar policies and social and political destabilization to jihadist terrorism. For Vladimir Putin, the unipolar world ended when globalization was countered by Chinese expansion, the BRICS and other new centers of economic and political development. The United States is now in a financial crisis provoked by its own geopolitical and financial overreach.

Several of the Russian President’s prophecies have come true: China is expanding geo-economically, both with the One Road, One Belt initiative, which will unify the entire Asian Heartland economically, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which will evolve from an "Asian EEC" into an "Eastern NATO".

The traditional American pendulum swings between exercising "necessary power" abroad and the "city on the hill”; between Teddy Roosevelt and the Monroe doctrine. Even Israel’s Prime Minister turned down a March 18 meeting with Obama, while strengthening ties with Russia, members of the Knesset paying a visit to Crimea in early February. Israel’s own global strategy is to continue a divide and rule strategy vis a vis its Arab neighbors, seeking to become a regional power as the Islamic world finds itself increasingly at war. Israel monitors its defenses along the Syrian border, and although when hostilities began it saw Bashar al-Assad as the weak link of the pro-Iranian axis, it will longer plan support the so-called "moderate rebels" alongside the

The US and NATO expected Russian support for the Arab Syrian Army to be technologically and strategically irrelevant, but with Baathist covert networks operating in Raqqa, the “Caliphate’s" capital city, and Assad’s forces a few miles away encircling Aleppo, ISIS/Turkey cooperation looks very different. The Russian Federation has proved a credible opponent of the Atlantic Alliance, preventing NATO from going beyond its old peacekeeping rhetoric in the Middle East and North

Russia and China are investing in Israel’s hi-tech sector, the most advanced in the world, filling the gaps left by the end of US hegemony and forcing Washington to pressure China to limit its land and sea power as it tries to encircle the Russian Federation in a useless resurgence of the Cold War. The Philippines offered the US six new bases for America’s Special Forces global network. But as John Maynard Keynes’ once said, "the difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping old

The US attempt to encircle Eurasia is met by Russian and Chinese expansion across the Eurasian Heartland. Today Putin is a careful follower of the American geopolitician Spykman, who was involved in Soviet containment and prioritized the “edges”, or “rim” of the world's continental land masses. Today, both China and Russia are expanding into their “near abroad”, in order to oppose the US economically, as China gradually relinquishes its role as foremost buyer of US Treasury bonds.

Both new powers aiming for a multipolar world are shedding dollars and buying gold, while the current imbalance in world markets enables China to sign contracts in renminmbi with emerging countries, and Russia to sell oil and gas to small nations as well as China, offsetting the US embargo.

A new distribution of the world’s strategic polarities can be imagined in the near future, going from Russia, the Western hinge of the new Chinese Silk Road towards the Middle East and the European Union, and countering the pro-US Sunni axis in Syria with a new independent role for Israel.

Russia still fears America’s global strike capability, with or without NATO support. Already at the 2007 Munich Conference, it stressed the importance of decoupling Europe from the Atlantic Alliance, which Putin sees as part of the US’s global strategy to protect power.

The Russian Federation will be stably connected to India, and later to the EU, as it separates strategically from the US and forges an independent foreign policy. It will also turn its attention to the Arctic and the Russian share of the Antarctic.

The primary aim of Russia’s maritime doctrine to 2020 is to protect its “near abroad” from destabilization by US-sponsored "color revolutions”, and NATO’s expansion is seen as the main threat to its strategic interests. Is the European Union really interested in destabilizing the Rimland to strike Russia or China? I think not.

The cultural and symbolic aspect.of Eurasianism is fundamental for Russia. The Soviet world saw a cultural continuity between Europe and the "Third Rome”, seeking to equalize, if need be violently, old Russia with the West. Today, Eurasia represents the cultural and strategic autonomy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, an attempt to connect Eurasia’s European peninsula with the Slavic Heartland, bridging nations and traditional geopolitical boundaries.

@vostok , @senheiser , @Chinese-Dragon , @Arryn , @Dungeness , @Tiqiu

 

[jhungary]

lol............

This is fun....

On one hand, the author saying Europe as a whole should maintain an "Independent" foreign policy. on the other hand, he is also preaching the Europe should join the Russia and China to "Counter" the balance of Pro-US Sunni Dominated Syria......

Did the writer actually know what he is saying? The two are contradicting each other. Joining "Russian" Bloc had they have one is not maintaining an "Independent" policy, otherwise EU leaning on NATO would also be called "Independent" FP....

But then this happened at the end of this Russian Insider Article

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LOL.

 

[TaiShang]

China-Russia ties not to be affected by changing int'l situation
Xinhua, March 16, 2016

Premier Li Keqiang said Wednesday that China-Russia relations will not be affected by changes in international situation and pressures from a third party.

China follows the principle of non-alignment, and China-Russia cooperation will not target at a third party, Li told a press conference after the conclusion of the national legislature's annual session.

China and Russia are each other's biggest neighbor, and there is a comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination in bilateral relations, the premier said.

"This relationship is an all-dimensional one," he said, adding that President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have met with each other "quite often".

There is a good political relationship and enhanced economic ties between the two countries.

China has developed its relations with Russia on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit, Li said, adding that China pursues an independent foreign policy of peace.

China and Russia can explore their cooperation in the integrated development of oil and natural gas, and introduce greater diversity in bilateral trade, said the premier.

 

[TaiShang]

China, Russia need to join hands to secure stability of Korean Peninsula
By Wang Xiaobo
Source:Global Times
Published: 2016-3-17 23:33:01


Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Russia last week. The two sides coordinated their stance over the North Korean nuclear issue, stating that both China and Russia firmly champion denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and would not give up efforts to resume the Six-Party Talks.

China and Russia of late have been deeply locked into a double-layered predicament on the Korean Peninsula, threatened by both the North Korean nuclear tests and the possible deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in the South.

Sticking to a strategic line of "parallel economic construction and nuclear weapons development," Pyongyang launched a long-range missile and placed a satellite into orbit with stubborn determination to acquire prohibited nuclear capabilities.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered his country to be ready to use its nuclear warheads at any time and to turn its military posture to "pre-emptive attack" mode, which aroused deep concerns in the international community. The US and South Korea have carried out joint military drills that are unprecedented in size. The confrontational acts of both sides have escalated tensions on the peninsula.

China and Russia are concerned that if the North Korean nuclear problem cannot be properly tackled, countries like South Korea and Japan will follow suit in nuclear weapons development. Worse, a regional war may break out, causing turbulence along borders with China and Russia, floods of North Korean refugees, destruction to the environment and a humanitarian crisis.

The two countries are also confronted with a second predicament of the possible deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea. According to the Associated Press, Washington and Seoul last week began formal talks on deploying this sophisticated system.

During Wang's Russia visit, Wang and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov expressed their opposition to the deployment of the THAAD system. They hold that putting the system in South Korea exceeds the actual defensive demands of the Korean Peninsula and would "inflict direct harm to the strategic security interests of China and Russia."

China and Russia should join hands and take a dual track of curbing both North Korea's nuclear ambition as well as the deployment of the THAAD system.

President Xi Jinping said in 2013 that "No one should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain."

In order to address the North Korean nuclear conundrum, China has put forward a proposal to pursue the denuclearization of the peninsula and the replacement of the armistice agreement with a peace treaty. Only if the two are negotiated in parallel, can a scientific, rational and balanced solution be reached to resolve Pyongyang's nuclear problem.

The situation on the peninsula has not improved since UN Resolution 2270 took effect. Instead, it has deteriorated. Concerning North Korea's advancement of its nuclear missile plan, China and Russia cannot sit by and see a disruption to the peace and stability on the peninsula and the Northeast Asian region.

The two also need to thwart the deployment of the THAAD system. Deploying the THAAD system in South Korea poses direct threats to the strategic and security interests of China and Russia. They must work together to prevent the US and South Korea from causing turbulence on the peninsula without hesitation so as to safeguard the security interests of both countries.

Northeast Asia is a complicated region full of hotspots and conundrums. China and Russia, for the interest of the whole region, should enhance cooperation, communication, coordination, information-sharing and military trust to lower the risks of war on the peninsula.

At a critical moment when the peninsula situation is spiraling out of control, Beijing and Moscow must demonstrate to Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul their resolution to safeguard the national interests and stability of the region by getting rid of the double-layered predicament through the method of dual track.

The author is a professor at the College of Political Science and Public Management, Yanbian University

 

[senheiser]

lol............

This is fun....

On one hand, the author saying Europe as a whole should maintain an "Independent" foreign policy. on the other hand, he is also preaching the Europe should join the Russia and China to "Counter" the balance of Pro-US Sunni Dominated Syria......

Did the writer actually know what he is saying? The two are contradicting each other. Joining "Russian" Bloc had they have one is not maintaining an "Independent" policy, otherwise EU leaning on NATO would also be called "Independent" FP....

But then this happened at the end of this Russian Insider Article

Did you enjoy this article? - Consider helping us!
Russia Insider depends on your donations: the more you give, the more we can do.
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LOL.

its called capitalism of course it doesnt work for your propaganda media thats why they all have to merge with one another and constaley to beg to turn off the Adblock on their websites lolmao

Russia Insider also has its own store
Shop Russia | 100% authentic, premium Russian-made products – delivered.

funny how they self-substantivise themself without any state help or big investor. But of course you would have either way dismissed them if it would be owned by the Russian Government or a close friend of Putin in your wicked Western Mindset.

 

[jhungary]

its called capitalism of course it doesnt work for your propaganda media thats why they all have to merge with one another and constaley to beg to turn off the Adblock on their websites lolmao

Russia Insider also has its own store
Shop Russia | 100% authentic, premium Russian-made products – delivered.

funny how they self-substantivise themself without any state help or big investor. But of course you would have either way dismissed them if it would be owned by the Russian Government or a close friend of Putin in your wicked Western Mindset.

lol, your post align to what Russian Insider said. Both are garbage.....

The only different is, people like you buy the garbage RI told you, but then no one buy your BS online......LOL...

Especially so when it was coming from a person who live in the west yakking about how Western Propaganda lol....You must be a fool to stay behind then.

 

[TaiShang]

Just discover new heights in bilateral relations...

This will drive neo-fascist elites crazy. The regular man on the street; I do not care what they think of China and Russia. It is their power elites that matter.

It is, nonetheless, refreshing to see the West (US) sees China and Russia increasingly through the same lens.

***

Panic Reaches New Heights: 'Russia, China Planning Space Attacks on US'

21:51 16.03.2016(updated 02:28 17.03.2016) Get short URL


In a new campaign of budget-bolstering and fear-mongering, the Pentagon has warned of impending attacks on US satellites by Russia and China.

"Adversaries are developing kinetic, directed-energy, and cyber tools to deny, degrade and destroy our space capabilities," Air Force Gen. John Hyten, head of the Air Force Space Command, told the US House Armed Service strategic forces subcommittee on Tuesday.

ESA/J.Huart

'Immediate Threats': US Air Force Strengthens Space Defense to Counter Russia, China


"They understand our reliance on space, and they understand the competitive advantage we derive from space. The need for vigilance has never been greater," he asserted.

Hyten has campaigned for a new Air Force project group, whose sole purpose would be to protect US space assets against foreign "aggression." On Tuesday, he warned that US Global Positioning System satellites are vulnerable to attack.

Lt. Gen. David Buck, commander of Joint Functional Component for Space, testified alongside Hyten.

"Simply stated, there isn’t a single aspect of our space architecture, to include the ground architecture, that isn’t at risk," Buck declared. "Russia views US dependency on space as an exploitable vulnerability and they are taking deliberate actions to strengthen their counter-space capabilities."

Buck also sounded alarms over China’s creation of its Strategic Support Forces, a space warfare and cyber warfare unit.

Get Lost, GPS: China Plans Launch of 40 Beidou Navigation Satellites


"China is developing, and has demonstrated, a wide range of counter-space technologies to include direct-ascent, kinetic-kill vehicles, co-orbital technologies that can disable or destroy a satellite, terrestrially-based communications jammers, and lasers that can blind or disable satellites," he said.

"Moreover, they continue to modernize their space programs to support near-real-time tracking of objects, command and control of deployed forces, and long-range precision strikes capabilities."

But alongside the chicken-little rhetoric that the sky is falling, the Pentagon officials could offer no proof, and only vague solutions to the dire threat they proclaim.

"A space offset strategy must employ a diverse set of resilience measures that complicate the technical, political, and force structure calculus of our adversaries, by arraying a complex set of response, with few overlapping vulnerabilities and a combination of known and ambiguous elements," Douglas Loverro, deputy assistant defense secretary for space policy, told Congress.

Much of this wild-eyed science-fiction hype appears to be driven by a fear of losing the current military space budget, in a period of financial drawdowns for the Pentagon. Last month, Hyten told Defense One that US Space Command keeps a close eye on Russian satellite positions, claiming that, "We watch where it goes all the time."

Similarly, the Air Force expressed anguish over China’s decision to shoot down one of its own weather satellites in 2007. While the move was a way to effectively dismantle a decaying satellite, Washington viewed the incident as a demonstration of Beijing’s offensive capabilities.

The US condemned North Korea’s recent satellite launch, leading the charge to impose additional UN sanctions on Pyongyang.

As the Pentagon relentlessly invents external "threats" at which to point fingers, Hyten admitted in December 2015 that the US may be unintentionally jamming its own satellites.

2015 saw 261 cases in which US satellite communications were jammed. When asked by Breaking Defense how many of those were conducted by China or Russia, Hyten, at the time, said, "I really don’t know. My guess is zero."

@vostok

 

[TaiShang]

COSCO buys stake in big Greek port

China's largest shipping company COSCO closed the deal to buy a majority stake in the Greece's biggest harbor, a move that would give the shipper control over one of the country's key thoroughfares into Europe.

The deal, signed on Friday between COSCO Shipping Corporation Ltd, a company merged between China Ocean Shipping Group Co and China Shipping Group Co, and Greece's state asset sales fund, will see a total payment of 368.5 million euros ($420 million) for a 67 percent stake, but it still needs final approval from the Greek government.

The deal, also the first overseas investment after the combination, was followed by a slight surge in shares of China COSCO Holdings Co, a COSCO subsidiary, that have witnessed 2.13 percent increase to 6.24 yuan ($0.96) on Monday.

Zhou Mi, a senior researcher fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said that the move would not only boost regional connectivity and cooperation between China and Europe, but also provide better services to Chinese companies.

"After gaining the holding stake in the port, I think that will also help COSCO design its customized service and utilize the management system in terms of container, routes and timetable to better serve the Chinese clients," he said.

Zhou said the port, located in the Mediterranean Sea basin which links East Central Europe and Western Europe, will be of strategic importance for China, the world's second-largest economy, and help boost ties and business between the two regions.

Chinese investment in Piraeus is seen as a key plank of the Belt and Road Initiative, which envisages creating the 21st century land and maritime equivalent of the Silk Road.

Premier Li Keqiang, on a visit to Greece in June 2014, said that Piraeus could be China's gateway to Europe.

Piraeus Port is among the top 10 container ports in Europe. It has more than 1,500 employees and provides various services to more than 24,000 ships every year, earlier reports said.

COSCO pledged to make good on promises to attract more investment to the port and the country.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Workers protest as Greece sells Piraeus Port to China COSCO

By Angeliki Koutantou

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece sealed the sale of Piraeus Port Authority (OLPr.AT) to China COSCO Shipping Corporation (601919.SS) on Friday, while striking dockworkers protested against what will be the country's second major privatisation since late last year.

The sale of Greece's biggest port had been halted by the leftist government of Alexis Tsipras when it won elections in January last year but it was resumed under Greece's 86 billion-euro bailout deal agreed with its euro zone partners in August.

Dockworkers walked out on Friday and marched in central Athens to protest against the deal, which they fear will put their jobs at risk. Container terminals were shut as a result of the strike. Brief scuffles broke between police and some of the protesters

"This is not a concession, it's a giveaway of property belonging to the Greek people," Constantinos Tsourakis, a worker at the port, said. "Why should China be masters of the game at Piraeus and not the Greek state?"

Under the 368.5 million euro (£297.5 million) deal, signed on Friday by China COSCO with Greece's privatisation agency, COSCO will buy 51 percent of Piraeus for 280.5 million and the remaining 16 percent for 88 million after five years and once it completes investments of 350 million over the next decade.

China COSCO Chairman Xu Lirong, present at the signing, likened Piraeus Port to the 'Argo', the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts.

"Let the ship sail and bring the Golden Fleece," Xu said, adding that COSCO would invest in upgrading infrastructure at the port and that new jobs would be created.

"China COSCO Shipping ... will continue to be committed to Greek growth in the long-term," he said.

Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang invited his counterpart Tsipras to visit China, Tsipras' office said after the signing of the deal on Friday. The trip is planned for June.

The total value of the COSCO contract is 1.5 billion euros, including additional investment, as well as revenues of 410 million euros, dividends and interest Greece is expecting to collect under the 36-year concession deal between Piraeus Port and the government.

Privatisations, a major element of Greece's bailouts since 2010, have produced revenue of only 3.5 billion euros so far because of political resistance and bureaucratic hurdles.

Athens concluded a 1.2 billion euro airport leasing deal with Germany's Fraport (FRAG.DE) in December, hoping this would help the country meet this year's target for privatisation proceeds of 1.9 billion euros.

In January, Greece named COSCO as the sole bidder for Piraeus Port. Τhe port, a gateway to Asia, eastern Europe and north Africa, handled 16.8 million passengers and 3.6 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers in 2014.

COSCO has been operating one of the port's container terminals since 2009 and is investing 230 million euros to build a second container terminal at the port.



(Additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Jane Merriman)

 

[Jlaw]

Good move to help bring more jobs to the local Greeks and at the same time more Chinese products.

 

[TaiShang]

Good move to help bring more jobs to the local Greeks and at the same time more Chinese products.

That's just an extension of the OBOR, albeit a critical one in terms of access to vital European markets.

After China developed the port, it quickly rose to a prominent status among the ports in the world, registering high growth in volume and becoming one of the top ten ports in Europe. This has brought a lot of job to crisis stricken Greece, which has left so many Greek friends happy and elated.

This is a stage in China's global governance, from critique to reformer and now at the beginning of the creation stage.

China creates ideas and builds institutions to operationalize those ideas. This is what I call “alternative discourse making." This is more constructive than joining the Western discourse or responding to their libel and slander. Leave them and their discourse alone, they will dialectically die away in time.

That's why it is not advisable to respond them; because this will only help their discourse to remain relevant longer.

Future belongs to those who sing a new tune. The US regime is fossilized.

Greece seals sale of Piraeus Port to China COSCO; deal hailed by both countries
11 Apr 2016

by ShippingHerald

An agreement between Greece’s privatization fund HRADF and China COSCO Shipping Corporation for the sale of the majority stake in Piraeus Port Authority (PPA) was signed in Athens. The agreement has been hailed by both Greece and China as creating a win-win situation for all parties.

Under the deal, the Chinese investors will pay 280.5 million euros ($319.79 million) to HRADF for the initial acquisition of a 51 percent stake, while it will pay another 88 million euros within five years for the remaining 16 percent, provided it has implemented the agreed investments in the port.

The agreement was signed by HRADF chief Stergios Pitsiorlas and COSCO Hong Kong CFO Feng Jinhua in the presence of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, China COSCO Shipping Chairman Xu Lirong and Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zou Xiaoli at the office of Greek Prime Minister.

Welcoming Xu at his office, Tsipras said the agreement signing will “cut the ‘Silk Road’ shorter.”

“We want to become a bridge between West and East. To build a reliable cooperation that can guarantee speed and efficiency in the transportation of goods from China to the Mediterranean and Europe”, Tsipras pointed out.

According to the Greek prime minister, the agreement sends a strong message to the global economic community for the recovery of the Greek economy.

“With the agreement there is an important opportunity for the two countries to develop a growth orientation that can benefit both,” Tsipras added.

Addressing distinguished guests after the ceremony at the Zappeion Exhibition Center in Athens, Xu said China COSCO Shipping has always been committed to harmonious development in Greece and a win-win situation for all parties.

In 2015, the container throughput of Piraeus Port increased to 3.36 million TEU from 880,000 TEU in 2010, while the global ranking of Piraeus Port also increased significantly from 93rd to 39th in terms of container capacity.

In addition, COSCO Shipping will not only operate a state-of-the-art port that will connect Asia and Europe trade, but will also create jobs and help invigorate the Greek economy.

“The development of PCT(Piraeus Container Terminal) has improved Piraeus Port’s core facilities, brought more than 1,200 new direct jobs to the people of Greece, increased Greece’s fiscal revenue and boosted demand for ship materials, and promoted the development of the local economy,” he added.

Referring to the provisions of the agreement, the China COSCO Shipping chairman pointed out the strategic benefits provided by China’s Belt and Road Initiative to help Piraeus Port become the Mediterranean’s largest container transit port.

On the Greek part, Greek Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragassakis said these agreements are of strategic nature as they are not temporary, but can generate prospects for the next decades.

Dragassakis hailed the historical strong Sino-Greek ties noting that the agreement opened the road for more investments in the industries of tourism, commerce and culture.

“The investment must be not only economically viable, but to have a positive impact to the society as well,” he said.

Apart from the Chinese imports, Dragassakis stressed that the cooperation can benefit also Greek exports.

“The marine route should and can be bidirectional, not only have imports to Greece and Europe, but also Greek exports to China,” Dragassakis said.

Chinese Ambassador to Greece Zou Xiaoli added that the agreement marked a historic milestone for Sino-Greek friendship and relationships at multiple levels.

“China and Greece, two ancient nations, are once again presented with the opportunity to promote human civilizations side by side,”Zou said.

The Chinese ambassador added that there was great potential for bilateral cooperation in underwater archaeology, cultural heritage restoration, film, press, publication and cultural industry among other fields.

For the advantages of the agreement talked also the mayor of Perama, the city where Cosco is located at the extreme western end of the port of Piraeus. “This investment will benefit both the local economy and national economy. It will have positive impact in the unemployment rates and in Greece’s prosperity,” Yannis Lagoudakis, mayor of Perama city, told Xinhua.

Since 2009, COSCO Shipping’s subsidiary PCT has been operating Piers II and III at Piraeus port under a 35-year concession agreement posting remarkable results, while PPA was running Pier I until today.

COSCO Shipping’s vision to turn Piraeus into a leading international transit hub for products and services from Asia to Europe has already attracted other major multinationals to the port which are cooperating with PCT to distribute their products in the region.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

in Asia, only China dare to chart the water that traditionally dominated by western countries such big corporation take over or mega risky project, we will succeed where western failed, I believe China and Greece will be success in this cooperation.

 

[TaiShang]

Piraeus Port deal can lay foundations for new era of Sino-European trade, cooperation
By George N. Tzogopoulos


Approximately three months after the Greek Privatization Fund accepted the offer from COSCO for the sale of the Piraeus Port Authority, final details of the deal have started to be agreed. The recent visit to Athens of the president of the newly established China COSCO Shipping Group, Xu Lirong, and his meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos confirmed the will of both sides to expand their smooth cooperation, which started in 2009. As President Pavlopoulos said, "the new Piraeus investment is highly interesting not only in terms of its economic impact but also concerning relations between Greece and China."

The Greek Privatization Fund has announced that COSCO will offer 368.5 million euros ($418.65 million) to buy the Piraeus Port Authority and assesses that the total value of the agreement could amount to 1.5 billion euros, including future investments to be made by the Chinese company in Piraeus.

A recent study by the Foundation of Economic and Industrial Research in Greece attempted to quantify specific benefits.

In particular, this study goes beyond the concession deal itself and fiscal revenues and examines positive results for other areas of the economy.

It expects multinational companies to invest in the port and around Piraeus and considers the construction of logistic hubs and repair zones as well as the development of the cruise sector as natural parallel activities.

In that regard, the privatization of the Piraeus Port Authority could be an engine for growth leading to an economic output of 4 billion euros in 2025.

More importantly, COSCO's involvement in Piraeus has a critical geopolitical impact because it turns Greece's biggest port to a transhipment hub which is a gateway to Europe due to its geographical location.

In a period of economic calamity the Greek government should be continuously looking for similar opportunities that can make the country a point of reference in international relations and business.

The Chinese side believes that COSCO's investment in Piraeus is a "win win" situation. This argumentation is reasonable. The implementation of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative will involve Greece's biggest port, especially if the China-Europe Land-Sea Express Route is constructed.

Also, the Chinese shipping giant can rely on Piraeus to boost its profitability.

The recent acquisition of the Piraeus Port Authority is not merely a Sino-Greek affair. Its importance goes beyond the bilateral context and affects the evolution of Sino-European relations.

In a period during which more Chinese investments in Europe are taking place, the Piraeus deal could be a model for both sides generating new Sino-European interest for partnerships.

Optimism, however, should not hide existing problems. The ongoing refugee crisis occasionally hinders the smooth operation of the Greek railway, causing serious delays in the transportation of goods from and to the Piraeus port. In addition, some details of the concession agreement are still pending along with its ratification in the Greek Parliament.

But experience from previous years suggests that small obstacles can be overcome and little differences can be balanced when appropriate patience is shown.

The author is a lecturer at the European Institute in Nice, France.