Posted by Czech leading Europe in Silk-Road hook-up on Tue, 27 Mar 2018 13:49 | #

HKTDC Research, “The Czech Republic: A Belt and Road Link in CEE, 14 July 2017:

Boom Time for China-led M&As;:
The Czech Republic is home to the biggest airport of any of the newer EU member countries and also to one of the densest railway networks in Europe. As a result, many multinational companies have set up regional logistics centres there. It has some of the best, if not the best, passenger flight connections of any Central and Eastern European Country (CEEC) with the Chinese mainland – and the increased belly cargo capacities, plus the new all-cargo flights between Hong Kong and the Czech capital Prague, have further improved the country’s competitive advantage in the eyes of Asian traders and investors.

Following a boom in the manufacturing and IT sector in recent decades, many Czech enterprises are ripe for development, with their owners considering growing the businesses in co-operation with a reliable foreign partner or selling the businesses outright. Meanwhile, relations between the country and China have improved markedly since Czech President Miloš Zeman assumed office in 2013, and reached a high point following the historic three-day state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Czech Republic in March 2016 (related podcast).

This has helped to create a more business-friendly atmosphere between the two countries. Some investment deals involving Czech companies have actually been done through Hong Kong, while several Czech businesses now focus their attention on Asian markets with their own presence in Hong Kong.

A Crucial Logistic Interface in One Way or Another

The Czech Republic has overcome the disadvantage of being a landlocked country by developing one of the best, if not the best, air transport links with Asia of any of the CEECs. These include excellent connections with the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG) now has regular direct passenger flights with three Chinese cities – Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu.

Václav Havel Airport Prague (PRG) is the biggest airport of any of the newer EU member countries.

The belly cargo capacities on these passenger flights, in addition to the all-cargo services between Hong Kong and Prague operated by Slovakia-based Air Cargo Global (ACG) since May 2017 (with a technical stop at Turkmenbashi (KRW) airport in Turkmenistan), have increased the Czech Republic’s ability to handle cargo demand from Chinese and Asian companies on the look-out for ways to take better advantage of the cross-border e-commerce bonanza happening across Europe.

Unlike the other V4 countries, the Czech Republic does not have a common border with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) area, and so cannot profit directly from serving as a major railway junction for the trans-shipment of containers between the broad-gauge (1,520mm) trains used in former Soviet countries, such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, and the standard-gauge (1,435mm) trains used in China and the EU.

But the country’s well-connected airport, together with its dense rail network (one of the densest in Europe, after only Luxembourg and Belgium), means the country remains highly competitive and attractive for multinationals such as Foxconn and Amazon looking to set up regional logistics centres for the European-wide distribution of high value-added electronics and the fulfillment of online orders.

It’s not just in creating a logistics hub that the Czech Republic’s railways are important to the country. 200 years of Czech rail industry tradition, coupled with the wave of railway privatisation in Europe in recent decades, has helped to make the country a global leader in rail applications and given it another way to contribute to the expanding rail development between Europe and Asia.

Many Czech companies are heavily involved in the rapid expansion of railway systems worldwide. One such company is the wheelset manufacturer GHH-Bonatrans. As the largest European producer of railway wheelsets and a premium supplier of rail-bound transportation worldwide, GHH-Bonatrans won a MTRC contract to supply wheels for passenger trains in 2015 and established its first Asia presence – Bonatrans Asia Limited – in Hong Kong last year.

GHH-Bonatrans is a Czech-based manufacturer of wheelsets for all kinds of rolling stock with a history dating back to 1808. (1) Photo: GHH-Bonatrans.
Source: Bonatrans Asia Limited

GHH-Bonatrans is a Czech-based manufacturer of wheelsets for all kinds of rolling stock with a history dating back to 1808. (2) Photo: GHH-Bonatrans.
Source: Bonatrans Asia Limited

The company’s tilt towards Asia involves doing business not only with Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, but with many other Asian countries too, including India and ASEAN. With the Hong Kong office as its sales and service arm for Asia and its manufacturing and servicing facilities in India, GHH-Bonatrans can better promote its new-built and after-sale solutions for clients such as China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) in Asia, which was estimated to account for about 12% of the company’s deliveries in 2015/16.

Czech rail applications suppliers, riding on their price competitiveness, are looking to cash in on Asia’s fast-growing rail network. In China, for example, the amount of high-speed railway mileage reached 22,000km in 2016. While China’s dependency on imported rail applications is actually decreasing with the emergence of domestic versions [1] of high-speed train wheelsets and axles, Czech suppliers which can meet the strictest requirements for train components running at speeds up to 450kph remain a much sought-after partner for Chinese rail operators. Also important is, Czech state-of-the-art technology for noise reduction and rail-wheel contact protection.

The combination of railways which lead the world in terms of safety, reliability, customer service and cost efficiency, and a professional services cluster with extensive global networks and affiliations, has made Hong Kong a natural destination for Czech enterprises hoping to grow with Asian investors under the framework of such regional and/or interregional development initiatives such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Already a conduit for China’s outbound direct investment (ODI), Hong Kong serves as a crucial link in providing not only the important capital flows, but also highly sought-after local knowledge and assurance to new-to-the-market Czech enterprises.

Boom Time for China-led M&As;:

Another trump card of the Czech economy is its strong and highly competitive industrial base. The Czech Republic is the EU’s most industrialised country, with industry accounting for more than 47% of its total economic activity. Its competitiveness ranks higher than CEEC peers such as Poland and Slovakia (see graph), which gives it a significant advantage in the race to attract foreign investment.

       

Posted by UsualSuspects abet RaceTreason in TradeNegotiation on Thu, 29 Mar 2018 16:12 | #

Kumiko Oumae: Race treason from top to bottom, there are no victories here.

As predicted, the Moon government has no ability to deal with the usual suspects, and so bilateral negociations with monsters was always going to end like that..

Hani.co.kr, “[News Analysis] South Korea scores symbolic victories in negotiations over KORUS FTA”, 27 Mar 2018:

US receives concessions on automobile import restrictions and prescription drug pricing

               
South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong takes a drink of water during a briefing to discuss the results of the KORUS FTA revision agreements at the Central Government Complex in Seoul on Mar. 26. (by Baek So-ah, staff photographer)

While presenting results of the negotiations to revise the South Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) at the Central Government Complex in Seoul on Mar. 26, South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong said that South Korean negotiators had protected the nation’s interests. “We participated in the negotiations more with the aim of defending the national interest than of protecting the KORUS FTA. We gave ground where appropriate while securing our interests [in the agreement],” Kim told reporters.

South Korea had found itself at a disadvantage in the negotiations because of the major divide between the two countries from the outset of the negotiations, which was compounded by American tariffs on steel. Despite these circumstances, Kim said, the negotiators managed to protect the South Korean market as best they could.

As Kim said, balancing the two sides’ interests was not an easy proposition in the negotiations, which were launched because of the US’s unilateral demand for and objective of “resolving the trade imbalance.” But a close look at the final tally of the negotiations also suggests that South Korea won the symbolic victories, while the US pocketed the practical benefits. South Korea received assurances about securing import quotas for steel and institutional and procedural improvements for investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) and trade remedies. The US, on the other hand, received concessions that will have an immediate effect, such as easing import restrictions on automobiles and improving the pricing system for new drugs.

South Korea is the first country exporting steel to the US to secure a steel import quota (70%, or 2.68 million tons, of average yearly exports between 2015 and 2017). While accepting some of the US’s demands about American automobiles and pharmaceuticals, South Korea basically managed to arrange the first deal on steel. But a senior official from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said, “We initially wanted to secure a tariff-rate quota that would give us a steel quota and allow us to export the volume above that the quota to the American market with a tariff of 25%, but that didn’t work out.” The volume of steel exports will fall to 70% of the volume of previous years, and no more exports will be allowed after the quota has been reached. “This resolved the instability and the unpredictability faced by exporting companies,” Kim said when asked about the swift settlement of the steel issue.

One view is that the pros and cons of the steel import quota, which is limited to 70% of the average imports over the past three years, must be compared with the alternative scenario in which the tariffs take effect.

“The South Korean steel industry preferred the quotas to the tariffs. If the countries exempted from the tariffs and the exempted categories increase in the future, President Trump is likely to raise the tariffs higher than 25% in order to achieve his import reduction goals. In that situation, we would have been forced to quickly get off the list of countries facing thethe tariffs. We can only export 70% of the previous volume, but if the price of steel in the US rises because of the imposition of tariffs, the value of South Korean steel makers’ exports might actually increase,” a spokesperson for the Ministry said.

The decision to relax environmental and safety standards for automobiles that the US has repeatedly described as non-tariff barriers to trade came as no surprise. South Korea agreed to increase the number of American automobiles that can be imported even if they do not satisfy South Korean safety standards (about the color of turn signals, for example) as long as they satisfy American standards from the current level of 25,000 vehicles per company to 50,000 vehicles.

“While we increased the number to 50,000, the actual number of vehicles imported each year by the US’s three big automakers is below 10,000, so [50,000] has no effect on the actual import volume,” Kim said. But others argue that South Korea gave major concessions on automobiles in order to reach an agreement on steel. When calculating South Korea’s costs, it is also necessary to include the government’s and various industries’ sharp increase in imports of American products and their expansion of investment in the US, which were aimed at highlighting the FTA’s benefits.

20 year extension on tariffs for Korean pickup trucks

Furthermore, the timeframe for repealing the 25% tariff on Korean pickup trucks was extended by 20 years, from 10 years after the KORUS FTA took effect (that is, 2021) until 2041. “At the moment, basically no pickup trucks are being exported to the US,” Kim noted.

But in Kim’s book Talking about the KORUS-FTA, when he played up the importance of ending the tariff on pickups. “We aren’t currently manufacturing pickup trucks, but we will be in the future. The important thing is that [the US’s] high tariff of 25% on pickup trucks must be lowered so that we can attract investment,” he wrote. In effect, the extension of the timeframe greatly reduces the likelihood of South Korean companies breaking into the growing US pickup truck market.

Another major victory for the US is the agreement to hold additional negotiations to revise South Korea’s pharmaceutical pricing system for innovative medicine from around the world. American pharmaceutical firms have repeatedly complained that the price of medicine is set too low by South Korea’s national health insurance.

Among South Korea’s gains, one of the more notable is the improvement of the system for settling investor-state disputes. The two sides agreed to include in the revised agreement a provision to prevent investors who have invested capital in the other country from filing frivolous disputes and to ensure that the two governments’ due sovereignty over policy is not infringed.

There will also be the addition of a section to ensure procedural transparency, such as releasing documents from local anti-dumping investigations, when either side initiates trade remedies (that is, import restrictions). This measure is designed to provide a way of dodging or blunting trade pressure from the US. But Kim said, “The results of the negotiations do not allow us to say categorically that the US trade risk has markedly decreased, and trade pressure is likely to continue for the rest of Trump’s time in office.”

The specifics of the revisions of the ISDS and trade remedy systems will be made public when the revised agreement is officially signed, following additional deliberations with the US.

By Cho Kye-wan, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

Kumiko: But it turns out the enemy is at least retarded -

Wall Street Journal, “Trump’s Managed Trade”, 29 Mar 2018:

The revised Korea deal favors Detroit and steel over U.S. consumers.

The Trump Administration is celebrating its revised trade agreement with South Korea, and the news is how little the deal will change. The U.S. wisely backed away from threats to blow up the pact with its sixth largest trading partner, but the price is more politically managed trade.

Donald Trump once called the 2012 bilateral pact “horrible” and threatened to withdraw if Seoul refused to renegotiate. But after melodrama the new pact’s revisions are…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/phillevy/2018/03/26/korea-deal-shows-emptiness-of-trump-trade-agenda/#394f9b7447cb

Posted by China's most complicated interchange on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:12 | #

Posted by Cool song too on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:57 | #

           
Complex interchange in China with cool song

Posted by Silk Road News on Thu, 18 Oct 2018 03:33 | #

        New Silk Road prospecting conspicuously circumnavigates the Russian Federation.

     

The China Road Project is embarking on a 60,000 km journey over land and sea to investigate the infrastructure projects that make up the Belt and Road Initiative.

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Posted by Italy first G7 to endorse China's belt road on Sat, 30 Mar 2019 09:13 | #

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Italy is now the first of the G7 group of industrialized nations to endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but what does this mean? Find out more about the main implications of the BRI in Europe in this month’s @ReconAsia newsletter. http://bit.ly/2YySAHC