by Xinhua writers Liu Yinglun, Shu Na
HONG KONG, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- Belt and Road cooperation has ventured into new realms as technologies, products and know-how of Chinese firms gain traction worldwide, said participants of the 11th Belt and Road Summit concluding on Thursday.
After a fruitful 13 years, Belt and Road cooperation is no longer a question of "what for," but "what more," said Frederick Ma, chairman of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), pointing to the Belt and Road economies' common urge to strengthen business links with each other.
Belt and Road cooperation is extending from traditional infrastructure to new quality productive forces, with a focus on green transition, digital economy, and new technologies, Wang Shuguang, president of China International Capital Corp Ltd, told Xinhua.
As economic transformation sweeps through many emerging markets, the Belt and Road Initiative emerges as an even more efficient platform to expedite upgrades.
Kazakhstan, for one, views artificial intelligence as a key future driver of economic growth. It has adopted a new legal framework for the digital era and mapped out a digital development strategy through 2029.
Kazakhstan's Vice Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Bakhtiyar Mukhametkaliyev said the country hopes to strike win-win cooperation with Chinese tech firms like DeepSeek, Huawei and Alibaba on the back of its land resources, sound electricity infrastructure and flexible legislation.
A model of such win-win cooperation would even expand to the Central Asian market as a whole, given Hong Kong's access to financing as well as corporate management experience and mainland firms' technologies and talents, he added.
ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn called for more efforts to leverage the Belt and Road framework, particularly in under-tapped areas like the digital sector, blue economy, circular economy and green economy.
A recent HKTDC survey showed that 91 percent of Chinese mainland companies intend to establish a footprint in ASEAN countries. Kao expects the momentum to continue because the upcoming signing of the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement will align with the pledge to promote digital trade featured in the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 Upgrade Protocol inked last year.
Participants at the summit also view the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as a new frontier of Belt and Road cooperation for its testing-ground function, because businesses can develop, test and validate products across different markets and regulatory environments within one closely connected region.
Here, almost everything a business needs is within a couple of hours' reach: frontier research, advanced manufacturing at scale, commercial rules aligned with international best practices, and a consumer market of 88 million, said Paul Chan, financial secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government. ■
