Belt And Road Initiative Will Open Doors To Asean Companies, Says HSBC

KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 (Bernama) -- China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI), a developmental programme designed to link China’s southern and eastern commercial hubs with Europe and Africa, will open doors to companies in ASEAN, says HSBC. HSBC Asia-Pacific Head of Commercial Banking International Countries Tim Evans said under the initiative China would invest in strategic infrastructure projects abroad, whereby given its economic importance and geographical proximity, ASEAN would be one of the key focus. “While the main project contracts will likely be dominated by Chinese companies, these contractors are not big enough and they will have to seek sub-contractors in the region. “This will open the doors for domestic companies in various sectors such as engineering, logistics, maintenance, architecture and so on,” he told reporters, via a conference call, here Wednesday on the impact of China’s BRI on ASEAN. Evans said this initiative would also be a helpful catalyst to reduce the infrastructure gap across Southeast Asia, with infrastructure spending across developing Asia estimated at US$1.7 trillion a year from now until 2030. He said ASEAN-China economic ties continued to strengthen whereby, as at end-May 2016, two-way investment had exceeded US$160 billion with ASEAN being China’s top three largest trading partner. Bilateral trade also increased to US$472.16 billion in 2015 from US$ 7.96 billion in 1991 and the two dynamic economies were now aiming to increase their trade value to US$1 trillion by the end of 2020. Meanwhile, HSBC Asia-Pacific Co-Head of Infrastructure and Real Estate Group James Cameron said regional companies would also benefit from technology transfer and capacity building as the BRI was essentially a two-way relationship. “On project financing, we expect financial support for the initiative to come from private financing as the public sector do not have enough capacity. “We do have liquid commercial banks, locally and globally,” he added. -- BERNAMA