HAINAN, China—The southernmost provinces of Hainan and Guangdong have expressed their intention to establish strong relations with the Philippines to spur growth of their respective economies under China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
Dai Zhen, deputy director-general of the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs of Hainan province, said the provincial government was keen on stimulating growth and development with the Philippines, particularly in the area of trade and commerce, finance, agriculture, tourism and maritime transportation.
The island province of Hainan and Guangdong are China’s two southernmost provinces and face the West Philippine Sea and the disputed islands of the South China Sea.
Dai told a delegation of Filipino journalists invited by the Chinese Embassy in Manila to a six-day trip to Guangdong and Hinana that the provincial government also wanted to promote cultural and educational exchanges to foster people-to-people relations between the two countries.
Dai said the Hainan government is upbeat because both Hainan and the Philippines have a lot in common.
“In climate and geographic conditions, Hainan and the Philippines are similar too,” the official said.
“Although Hainan is a young province, but we have cumulative experience in developing Hainan, so in this aspect I can say that Hainan and the Philippines can learn from each other,” the Hainan foreign affairs official said.
She said Hainan already established “sisterhood” relations with Cebu in 1996 and Palawan in March this year.
“We also hope to build cooperation in the area of tourism, as well as share experiences about the development of tourism industry,” Dai said, adding that she is also looking forward for the opening of a cruising terminal of its Sanya Phoenix Island and a direct flight of its local Hainan Airlines to and from the Philippines.
Lou Jun, the deputy director general of the Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Guangdong, said the provincial government intends to build economic links with Manila because the Philippines is very closed geographically with Guangdong.
Lou said that with China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative which promotes an “open policy,” Guangdong is now opening up its economy to foreign investors, as well as sharing its decades of experiences in transforming its economy, including the policies that they adopted to achieve its goals and economic growth.
“China is still a developing country. But the improvements we got today is due to good policies implemented by the Chinese government for the last three decades,” he said.
“We can share with you our experiences and achievements for the last three decades of developments. We believe that with hard work, with open-mindedness, and with sincere cooperation from other countries, a successful story can be made, just like what we have [here] today in Southern China,” he said.
“Besides, financial support or physical support, we have just to implement good policies,” he said.
Lou said Guandong desires to establish not only economic ties with the Philippines but also a stronger people-to-people bond.
China has developed significantly in the last three decades, Lou said, pointing to its production of sophisticated products such as electronic gadgets and smart phones, or the operation of a high-speed train in Hainan province that travels at 250 kilometers an hour.
“This only shows the progress. This only shows the development. This is not just something in the showcase, this is something in reality. People use that bullet train, people use that highways for their day-to-day transportation of the goods, the materials they produced and other products. So these kind of infrastructures, the improvements in the infrastructures you see will help people in the Philippines understand China,” Lou said.
Yao Weizhi, deputy director general of Foreign Affairs Office of Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government, vowed to share with the Philippines how the city achieved dramatic economic growth and became a major gateway of international exchange and one of the most developed and internationalized cities in China, since it implemented the reform and a policy of opening up in the 1980s.
Shenzhen, founded in 1979 and designated as Special Economic Zone one year later, has a land area of 1,996 square kilometers with permanent residents of 10.8 million. It is a coastal city in Guangdong, China, adjacent to Hong Kong. The city has compact air, land, and maritime transportation facilities, the largest number of ports in China, and the biggest cross-border flow of passengers and vehicles.
Executives of Huawei Technologies., Ltd, in Shenzhen, revealed that it has already expressed intention to participate in the Philippines’ national broadband project.
“We are already in talks with the Philippine government to improve broadband services in the country,” Wellington Liu Tao, head of public affairs and communications of Huawei Technologies Phils. Inc., told the eight-member delegation of Filipino journalists during a tour of its complex in Shenzhen.
Liu Tao said Huawei Philippines has been working with Secretary Rodolfo Salalima of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) for possible investments in the country’s broadband requirement.
During a tour of its complex in Shenzhen, Yantian Port Group also conveyed its intention to operate and manage ports in the Philippines. YPG, an exclusive state-funded company, developed and managed the Yantian Port, the biggest port in China.
“If the Central Government of China will allow us, we would be glad to operate and manage ports in the Philippines,” YPG’s chief engineer Mingjun Xiao told reporters through an interpreter.
