By Hou Hongyu

CPAPD General Office Director

At the invitation of the Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Azerbaijan(SAM)and Marmara Strategic and Social Research Foundation of Turkey,Ma Biao,CPPCC Vice Chairman and CPAPD Vice President heading a delegation,visited Azerbaijan and Turkey from3rd-10thNovember 2014,CPAPD Vice President He Jun accompanied him.

During the visit to Azerbaijan,Ma Biao met with H.E.Mr.Ziyafat Askarov,the First Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan,and H.E.Mr.Ali Ahmadov,Deputy Prime Minister of Azerbaijan,shared a working session with Farhad Mammadov,SAM Director and published a signed article entitledWorking together to Build the Silk Road Economic Belt and Jointly Share the Future Peace,Development and Prosperityin the Baku Workers Daily of the presidential office organ.While during the visit to Turkey,Ma Biao met with H.E.Mr.Sadik Yakut,the Deputy Speaker of the Turkish Grand National Assembly,Akkan Suver,Marmara Foundation President,and attended the seminar onThe Silk Road:Communication,Cooperation and Win-Winco-hosted by the CPAPD and the Marmara Foundation,and delivered the key-note speech entitledChina and Turkey Work together to Build the Silk Road Economic Belt and Jointly Enjoy the Future Peace,Development and Prosperity.

Presenting the conception of building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road by China,Ma Biao emphasized that Chinese President Xi Jinping respectively put forward a significant proposal of building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road in September and October2014 respectively during his visit in Central Asia and Southeast Asia.In 2013,the Third Plenary Session of the 18thCPC Central Committee adopted the Decision on all-dimensionally deepening reform,the Fourth Plenary Session held recently adopted the decision on all-dimensionally pushing forward governing the country with law.These two decisions are major strategic plans for China’s reform and development,and will vigorously promote the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road.

Ma Biao pointed out that since building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road is proposed,it has won extensive response and positive support by a vast number of Eurasian countries including Azerbaijan and Turkey,and has become collaborate actions for mutual benefit and win-win cooperation between China and the regional countries.With peace and development,and win-win cooperation as the main themes of the times,jointly building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road will promote communications on policies,connections with roads,facilitation of trade,circulation of currencies and affection of people,is in favor of economic common development and common prosperity of all countries and beneficial to exchanges and mutual-learning among different ethnic groups,countries and regions of different civilizations,will create new opportunities of common development for over 50 countries including Azerbaijan and Turkey along the route,will generate tangible benefits for 3.8 billion people,and inject new energy for regional and global peace,development and cooperation.

Ma Biao pointed out that Azerbaijan is an important country on the Silk Road from China’s Northwest to Central Asia,West Asia to Mediterranean,while Turkey is an important country on the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road.China together with Azerbaijan and Turkey make active and joint efforts to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road,which provide huge opportunities and demonstrate promising prospects for various countries to get common development,for achieving mutual benefit and win-win cooperation,and for the welfare of their people.He emphasizes the following points:

First,make all-out efforts to promote policy-sharing for building the Silk Road Economic Belt.In the era of globalization,only any project for regional cooperation conception attains mutual benefit and win-win cooperation and genuinely benefits all sides,can it have lasting vitality and broad prospect.China conceives the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road,which is to closely link itself development with development of various countries including Azerbaijan and Turkey along the routes,and shape“community of interests”and“community of destiny”featuring mutual benefit and joint pursuit for development.The national development plan“2020:Prospect for the Future”by Azerbaijan describes the dream for strengthening the country and enriching its people while the objective for becoming a top-10 world economy by 2030 adopted by Turkey describes the dream for strengthening the country and enriching its people.The dreams of the two countries are strongly similar to the Chinese dream of seeking great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.China plans to redouble its GDP and its per capita income of urban and rural dwellers and to thoroughly achieve the moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2020,and build China into a strong,democratic and culturally advanced and harmonious socialist modernized country by the mid-century.We figurately summarize this objective as the Chinese dream to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.The fact that China and Azerbaijan,and China and Turkey achieve compatible development strategy and complementary advantages will generate important energy to push forward economic development of countries and regions.

Second,make active efforts to push inter-linking infrastructure for building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road.Promote smooth logistics for various sides can forcibly pull the socio-economic development.Azerbaijan plans to continuously take advantage of its resources,increase input into its petroleum industry,speed up construction of international energy pipes,and raise its national fiscal income;to develop communication and information industries,and build information high-ways;to accelerate construction of its transportation infrastructure and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway,and hope to become a logistics center through connecting countries in the East and West,and North and South by using its geographical location;to develop tourism and promote its development.Turkey adopts a plan to revitalize the Silk Road,to vigorously build its major railway line from eat to west across the country,to open the high-sped train from Ankara to Istanbul,Marmara tunnel and build high-sped train from Ederny to Kars;to construct natural gas and petroleum pipes;to accelerate airports construction to expand aerial lines.The plans by Azerbaijan and Turkey happen to coincide with China’s plan to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road.China has leading technology in energy,transportation and communication infrastructure,etc.complete set of equipments and rich experience in construction and competitive prices,is ready to work with Azerbaijan and Turkey to build the grand new Eurasian corridor roads,and energetically develop the Asia-Europe bridge into a growth point on the combined transportation,oil pipe lines,communication fiber line and logistics so as to deepen the regional cooperation.

Third,adhere to further opening-up and deepen tangible cooperation.Firstly,further expand opening-up.Only in the course of opening up to each other can inclusiveness and sustainable market be nurtured,and the long-term and stable partnership be maintained.China,Azerbaijan and Turkey are all at the critical stage for developing economy and improving their people’s livelihood,and confront the urgent tasks of accelerating economic transition and upgrade.China and Turkey should open up their markets to each other,learn from each other and trade the needed goods bilatereally to become long-term and stable cooperative partners.They should deepen cooperation regarding custom control,quality check,logistics,electronic business,personnel entry and exit.The two sides should facilitate liberalization and simplification of investment and trade with a broader vision,more wide-ranging thinking and more broadmindedness,create conditions for full flow of the factors such as commodities,services,capital,etc.to enhance the economic cycle speed and quality in the region to attain mutual benefit and win-win results.Secondly,deepen tangible cooperation.Economics and trade are important pillars for friendly relations between countries.After over30-year reform and opening-up,China’s economy rapidly develops.Last year,China’s GDP was about US$9.3 trillion,up 7.7 than the previous year,the per capita GDP was close to US$7000,the total volume of foreign trade about US$4.16 trillion.In the forthcoming 5 years,China will import commodities worth US$10 trillion,invest over US$500 billion outbound,and witness about 0.5 billion outbound tourists,so countries along the Silk Road will be the first to be benefited.In the wake of advancing construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt,the tangible cooperation among China,Azerbaijan and Turkey will meet with new development opportunities,China will adopt a series of preferential policies to encourage China’s businesses to invest in those countries along the Roads,so there will be more China’s businesses to invest in Azerbaijan and Turkey,the cooperation prospects for China with Azerbaijan and Turkey is promising in respects of economics and trade,banking and financing,energy,aviation and space technology,high-speed train and highways as well as tourism.

Fourth,strengthen humanistic exchanges and consolidate the foundation for public opinion.The Silk Road witnesses the ancient friendly chapters commended and created jointly by people of various countries,and collaborating in building the Silk Road Economic Belt is sure to advance exchanges and mutual-leaning among different civilizations.We should continue to promote humanistic and social cooperation,support multi-channel and multi-level exchanges by NGOs,think tanks,universities,media,etc.and facilitate the seeds of understanding and friendship to take roots and bear fruits among the people.The CPAPD is the largest NGO for peace in China,and is ready to carry out exchanges and cooperation with mainstream think tanks and NGOs of Azerbaijan and Turkey,and make positive contributions for enhancing mutual exchanges and cooperation,promoting tangible cooperation and development and maintaining global and regional peace and security.

Ma Biao’skey-note speech won positive response in Azerbaijan and Turkey.Ahmadov responded that Azerbaijan is an important composition of the Silk Road Economic Belt,China-Azerbaijan joint efforts to build the Silk Road Economic Belt will play a positive role in promoting the world economic recovery,and Azerbaijan hopes to become an active cooperative partner for the building the Belt.Mammadov said that Mao Biao’s article helped the Azerbaijan from the top leadership down to the ordinary people to get understanding of building the Silk Road Economic Belt.Yakut said that the development strategy on building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road put forward by the Chinese leadership is highly compatible with the plan on“revitalizing the Silk Road”proposed by the Turkey’s leadership,and the building of the Silk Road will ensure lasting peace and common prosperity for countries and regions along the Road,and Turkey is ready to strengthen cooperation and dock with China.Turkey parliamentarians,government officials and scholars present at the seminar believed that the concerted efforts on building the Silk Road Economic Belt is beneficial to Turkey-China tangible cooperation and to maintenance of the regional peace and security.

Farhad Mammadov expressed that SAM is ready to establish institutionalized exchanges with the CPAPD,and carry out joint research projects and publicity projects surrounding the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road.Akkan Suver highly commended the bilateral mechanized exchanges,and cordially invited the CPAPD to send a group to attend the 18thEurasian Economic Summit to be held in April 2015 in Turkey.