The winds of change blow cool air in Hong Kong

Today marks the opening of the fourth annual One Belt and One Road (OBOR) summit held in Hong Kong to update participants in the amazing world of OBOR.

Nearly 5000 delegates attended the opening of the summit. Hong Kong continues to be the highly favoured commercial centre for OBOR. Much was said by all officials, delegates and speakers of its pivotal role as a centre of legal technical and financial expertise in the OBOR process.

There was a thoroughly amazing list of speakers from Beijing, each reinforcing that Hong Kong remains the gateway for China to the world and for the world into China. 

A recurring theme was that Chinese investment now also has “Chinese characteristics”. These characteristics are about social and environmental responsibility, but it also needy to be good business. It is clear that China has learned from some of his experience in Africa, and now wishes to focus on sustainable investment which can be paid for by newly created exports or access for exports. Debt must be lent responsibly and for sustainable investments.

It is clear all investments will need to be proven to be social responsibility and sustainable.

The exhibition hall contained a greater presence from the Middle East than previous years the representation from the Americas was zero as was from Australia and New Zealand. Nevertheless, examples were cited from these countries to.

The focus of presenters on the first day was clearly on the recent successes in linking China with Western Europe by rail and many of the developments which are occurring along this corridor with the support of Chinese investment.

It is interesting, as always, to hear the world as China sees it. It is a pity that some people in the Americas don’t stop and think that other people can and do see the world differently. As good investors we all like to see stability, it was very clear that is not being seen from the USA.

The size and the mechanics of the green bond market the historic involvement of China in it received much attention. The ability to get access to the USD 11bn raised offers many opportunities for our existing and potential clients in Colombia, Australia and Vietnam.

To my surprise considerable credit was given to the early investment by the Japanese in the modernisation of China. What was demonstrated is that communism with Chinese characteristics will see that debt repaid by assisting other countries to modernise. Again, it was clear this is not totally altruistic, today China sees that it is heavily invested in “sunset industries” and that it has overcapacity. China is keen to seem new countries develop and world trade increase so that one plus one is greater than two.

Whilst not in attendance, the contribution of President Xi, to the birth and support of OBOR was clearly acknowledged, as it should be. 

Tomorrow we return to more specialist sessions and the business matching sessions. This is where the real test of OBOR is. Carmenza and I have seen that these sessions can be very fruitful.

Tomorrow I hopefully will have OBOR in action to report on.


Paul Raftery