Criticism of China’s economic project Headwind on the “New Silk Road”

Status: 06/11/2021 12:58 p.m.

China is expanding its influence worldwide, and the “New Silk Road” is intended to further strengthen the country. But the criticism of the project is growing. At the G7 meeting, the Australian head of government wants to report on his experiences. From Steffen Wurzel, ARD studio Shanghai Ding Laisong from the customs authority of the Chinese port city of Ningbo was satisfied at the beginning of the week: Trade with the states of the so-called “New Silk Road” had increased by 30 percent, he said on the Chinese state television broadcaster CCTV. In the case of trade with the particularly committed Silk Road countries in Central and East Asia, the plus is even 50 percent.

Sri Lanka regrets cooperation

China’s state and party leadership continues to sell its controversial strategy and trade project “New Silk Road” within the People’s Republic as a great success. In numerous partner countries, however, the initial enthusiasm for the project has given way to sober insight. China’s state and party leadership has nothing to give away with the Silk Road. On the contrary: in many cases, the Silk Road partner countries have borrowed considerably – with Chinese state banks. This sometimes creates considerable dependencies. One example is the Hambantota port project in Sri Lanka. According to media reports, the expensive Silk Road port project has hardly brought the island state anything economically. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena now openly speaks of a mistake in leasing the port on the southern tip of the country to China for 99 years.

One billion euros in debt for Montenegro

In Europe, too, it is now becoming clear what the Silk Road critics have been calling a debt trap for years: the Balkan state of Montenegro, for example, had borrowed around one billion euros in China for the construction of a nearly 180-kilometer-long motorway. The autobahn is far from finished. But now the repayment is due – and the EU accession candidate lacks the money. The mood has also changed in large industrialized countries: In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Draghi put the Silk Road cooperation with China on hold, and the government in Canberra has also completed two projects in Australia. Only smaller, more symbolic projects were affected, but China’s communist leadership reacted angrily. She described Australia’s decision as “unreasonable and provocative”.

Australia accuses China of “extortionate behavior”

It is becoming clear that the communist leadership sees itself increasingly on the defensive in the Silk Road project, officially known as “Yi Dai Yi Lu”. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison complained at an economic conference in Perth “blackmailing behavior” by states like China. “Where compulsive acts have no consequences, there is little incentive to restrain,” said Morrison. Australia’s prime minister called for the sanctioning mechanisms of the World Trade Organization to be strengthened. Because if blackmailing behavior has no consequences, there is no reason for the corresponding states to hold back.

The G7 summit in Cornwall The heads of state and government of the seven leading industrialized countries (G7) will meet from June 11th to 13th in Cornwall, southwest England. For the first time in two years, they will meet again in person in the afternoon. In addition to climate change, the conference will also focus on trade issues and investments as well as the fight against the corona pandemic. In addition, the meeting will focus on the positioning towards Russia and China.
The G7 group includes the USA, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, France, Italy and Japan. Like-minded democratic states such as South Korea, South Africa, Australia and India are invited to the summit as guests. After the government in Canberra demanded a complete clarification of the origin of the Covid 19 pandemic around a year ago, Australia was de facto covered with an economic war by China’s leadership. The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to share this experience with the G7 countries. He will be a guest at the summit in England.

Although it is summer, Quang Ninh tourism is “frozen” due to the influence of the Covid-19 epidemic. Ha Long international passenger ship port these days seems to be more crowded, because hundreds of ships are anchored at the same time. The scenery is beautiful but gloomy because all the ships are lying on the shore. From May 6, due to the extremely complicated developments of the Covid-19 epidemic, Quang Ninh province has suspended all sightseeing and tourism activities at tourist sites, tourist attractions, relics and scenic spots on the island. locality. Ha Long Bay has about 500 cruise ships operating, but now from ships serving day visitors to overnight cruises worth hundreds of billions of dollars, all are subject to dormant anchorage at the wharf. No longer crowded with tourists, the harbor is deserted. It is estimated that before the pandemic, there were peak days when Ha Long Bay welcomed nearly 20,000 visitors. Many weekends in the summer of last year, the number of visitors has also recovered. Bai Chay tourist area is equally deserted. Along with tightening 5K, Quang Ninh has also asked to stop many non-essential services, making the streets even more deserted. While a number of large hotels have chosen to temporarily close at the beginning of the year, many small and medium hotels are still operating in moderation. “The travel stop is necessary to prevent the epidemic, we also have to adapt by letting employees take a break, then selling online,” said the owner of a restaurant. At the weekend, people came to Bai Chay beach to admire the scenery, some people still went to the beach to swim despite the regulations to suspend beach activities, not to gather crowds on the beach, and the loudspeakers continuously warned. The border of the sea is mainly local people going to exercise, complying with wearing masks to prevent epidemics. At Tuan Chau Tourist Area, the port area to welcome guests is also no longer a shadow of ships coming in and out. Previously, after the outbreak of the epidemic in early 2021, from about March, tourism activities in Quang Ninh returned, but the number of visitors was not large. Many ships in a state of “not being able to restart yet were lying ashore”. “The ship doesn’t go to sea but still has to maintain maintenance and lookout personnel, the bank debt also keeps increasing,” a ship owner lamented. Tens of thousands of direct and indirect workers in the tourism industry in Quang Ninh are also having to quit, relax, and struggle to wait for the end of the epidemic.

The installation of VssID – digital social insurance application helps employees closely monitor the process of paying – enjoying policies. The authorities have requested the Board of Directors of Hung Hau Agriculture Joint Stock Company to overcome the debt payment for social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance. By May 20, Hung Hau Agriculture Joint Stock Company had fully paid more than 2 billion VND of social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance debts for employees. From this incident, the Vietnam Social Security urged people and employees to actively install the VssID application to be able to monitor and supervise the process of participating and benefiting from the policy. In order to improve the efficiency of serving people and employees, Vietnam Social Security has just released an upgraded version of VssID application version 1.5.3 on the AppStore and Google Play app stores. The upgraded version allows users to register for electronic transactions with the social insurance agency on the VssID application and through the Public Service Portal (previously only through the Public Service Portal); integrate additional features to support lookup, scan QR codes of social insurance cards, citizen identification cards to automatically fill in the necessary information, instead of manually entering in the account registration information. In addition, the VssID version 1.5.3 application also adds the option to send the declaration Email, the “Invite VssID installation” utility, making it more convenient for users to register to use the account and invite you Friends and relatives use the application together. In particular, the new version of VssID application has added the online public service “Re-issuance of social insurance books without changing information” for individuals, bringing the total number of online public services provided on this application up. 4 services. Previously, 3 public services provided on VssID application were re-issuance of health insurance cards due to damage or loss; relocate to enjoy pensions and social insurance benefits; change the form of receipt or information of beneficiaries of social insurance. With obvious utilities, after 6 months of being put into use (from the end of November 2020 until now), the VssID – digital social insurance application has attracted more than 6.44 million downloads, installations, and registrations. Thereby, more than 5.6 million valid applications were approved, reaching 22.18% of the assigned target in 2021.

In the 2021 annual general meeting of shareholders on the morning of April 23, Mr. Le Quoc Binh, General Director of the company, explained the reason. Mr. Binh said that CII really wants to pay dividends because the BT project of Thu Thiem new urban area (total investment of over 10,000 billion dong) will finish this year and create cash flow for the company. However, this cash flow is late, and the debt index of the company at the end of 2020 will increase due to having to issue a large amount of bonds. In fact, bondholders forced CII to stop paying dividends to shareholders. Besides, the negotiation with foreign partners is quite difficult, so it is impossible to say when it is possible to close the right to pay dividend, Mr. Binh said. Shareholders suggest the company should use retained earnings from previous years to pay dividends in cash for shareholders. In response, Mr. Binh shared that according to the law, in order to pay dividends, the debt obligation criteria must be guaranteed in advance for a third party. Not to mention, CII needs to accumulate money to invest. Mr. Binh noted that it will be difficult for the company to ensure both debt repayment and investment and also pay dividends to shareholders. Therefore, Mr. Binh suggested that shareholders agree to the decisions of the Board of Directors to distribute profits, but Mr. Binh also affirmed that the company will do its best to ensure dividends to shareholders. 2021 is 12% cash (1,200 dong / share) “. The audited consolidated financial statements show that by the end of 2020, CII’s total liabilities are over 21,761 billion dong, of which short-term debt is 8,293 billion dong and long-term debt is over 13,468 billion dong. Debt to equity ratio is about 2.81 times. At the end of the stock trading session on April 24, the price of CII stock was temporarily stopped at VND 21,350 / share, a slight increase compared to the previous session, but down more than 6% within a week. CII share price fell by nearly 12% within a month and nearly 8% within a quarter.

Mr. Vu Anh Minh, Chairman of the Board of Members Railway Corporation Vietnam (VNR) has just issued an urgent petition to the Prime Minister “calling for help” on issues related to the development of a National Project on management, use and exploitation of railway infrastructure assets. The State invests and the allocation of resources for management and maintenance of real estate assets.

From 1955 to now, VNR is the only 100% state-owned enterprise established by the State with the purpose of assigning the management, exploitation, use and direct trading of all railway infrastructure assets. (KCHTĐS) in the form of excluding capital components in the enterprise.

VNR leaders said that with 3,143 km of railways going through 34 provinces and cities, in the absence of funding for the management of real estate assets, VNR has organized an asset management system from the General level. companies to member units and joint stock companies with dominant capital contribution.

Up to this point, due to the long and unusual effects of the Covid-19 epidemic as well as the construction of an investment package of VND7,000 billion belonging to medium-term capital, in single track conditions, both train and construction. , The railway industry is in a very difficult period.

Along with that, according to Mr. Vu Anh Minh, problems with funding for the maintenance of national real estate infrastructure in 2021 have not been resolved according to the direction of the Prime Minister, 20 companies perform the task of system maintenance. The national real estate infrastructure currently does not have the budget to buy materials to put into the project, regular expenses and especially to pay employees in the first 4 months of 2021, seriously affecting the lives of nearly 25,000 workers in the VNR. .

“The high risk is that 11,315 workers on the road patrol, bridge week, tunnel patrol, guarding the crossroads … will quit their jobs because they have no income. This issue has pushed businesses to the end, difficult to sustain. until the end of April 2021 “- President of VNR stated in the petition.

According to VNR, the project on management and use of national railway infrastructure assets submitted by the Ministry of Transport (MOT) to the Prime Minister up to this point continues to create many levels of management intermediaries, many administrative procedures. in the management, maintenance and exploitation of real estate assets, increasing licensing, and approving the subproject (sub-license). In particular, it is still proposed a mechanism to assign cost estimates for maintenance to the Vietnam Railway Administration (the agency only performs the advisory function under the Ministry of Transport and does not manage the assets of the real estate infrastructure).

“The proposal of the Ministry of Transport in the Project not only fails to overcome difficulties and problems in production and business activities, but also causes a lot of stagnation and congestion for VNR, pushing businesses to the risk of bankruptcy. , the risk of eliminating railway transport in the transportation system “- VNR leader said.

According to the VNR leader, in order to manage and maintain the assets of the national real estate infrastructure, VNR must organize a comprehensive and coherent human resources system from the parent company to the base units along the railway lines with a total of 11,315 employees were employed, including: 1,241 workers in bridge, road, and tunnel patrol; 915 indirect workers; 6,278 workers perform maintenance and quality control of maintenance work and 2,881 workers guarding the crossroads to ensure safe train operation.

Meanwhile, at present, the organizational apparatus of the Vietnam Railways Administration has only over 100 staff members (most of them are officers of the railway office and the railway traffic safety inspection force), so if the plan is implemented according to the Project, the Ministry As proposed by transportation, VNR still has to fully allocate the above 11,315 human resources to perform the tasks of asset management and the maintenance of national railway infrastructure assets.

“VNR will become an intermediary agency to delay, cause congestion in the process of maintenance and operation of transportation, directly affecting train safety” – VNR leader explained.

Based on the provisions of relevant laws, international experience and especially the practice of managing and operating operations, VNR believes that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have chaired meetings with Ministries many times. , departments to analyze the legal basis and have the conclusions and announcements. The Ministry of Justice also appraised the legality in Document No. 193 / BTP-PLDSKT dated January 22, 2021, which confirmed that the delivery of KCHTDS assets and cost estimate for maintenance to VNR Corporation is correct. current laws (including the State Budget Law).

From the above explanations, the Chairman of the Board of Members of VNR sincerely proposes to the Government, the Prime Minister to: Direct the Ministry of Transport to seriously, fully implement the direction of the Prime Minister in the document. 1956 / VPCP-CN dated March 24, 2021 on the management, use and exploitation of national real estate assets.

VNR also proposed to the Prime Minister to direct the Ministry of Transport to continue to assign estimates of economic causes for the management and maintenance of national real estate assets for the period from 2021 onwards to VNR as in previous years.