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FORMER President Fidel V. Ramos is the most active
mover and shaker for greater Philippine-China trade, investment and
human development relations.
He is the chairman of the board
of the annual Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), in southern China’s
Hainan island-province. The former president never tires of
stressing the important role China has been playing to advance the
process of achieving economic integration in Asia, which has begun,
albeit slowly, in Asean.
The Boao Forum for Asia is fast
gaining the prestige of being our part of the world’s equivalent
of the Davos (Switzerland) World Economic Forum. BFA is the largest
Asia-based nongovernment, nonprofit intellectual resource center. It
is of course heavily supported by China.
We talked about logistics and
freeport development in China in which field Filipinos can have jobs
and business partnerships.
Earlier this month, he gave the
keynote address at the international conference on “Modern
Logistics and Freeport Development” in Ningbo City, Zhejiang
province, China. Zhejiang used to be spelled Chekiang in
English-language newspapers, including The Times.
“Ningbo is a major port,
tourism center, and economic hub located at the south end of the
Yangtze River Delta,” he explained. It has among the most highly
developed economies in China, with 93,000 domestic and foreign
enterprises, a GDP of 343 billion RMB ($43 billion) in 2007 (or 1/3
of the entire GDP of the Philippines at $117 billion), and an
export-import volume of $56.5 billion. The port of Ningbo, ranked
fourth busiest in the world, is the largest transshipment hub in
China for crude oil, petroleum products, and chemical materials.”
“In May, 2008, the Hangzhou Bay
Bridge which connects Ningbo to Shanghai was opened. It is 36
kilometers long, the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, and was
built within four years—that is a record. It is considered an
engineering marvel,” he said.
He explained that Zhejiang
province, with a population of 51 million, is one of the best
developed in China. Its GDP of 1,863 billion RMB ($233 billion) in
2007 is twice the 2007 GDP of the Philippines. Zhejiang’s per
capita GDP of $4,600 is roughly five times China’s national
average, he said.
The Boao Forum organized the
logistics conference, together with the UN Development Program (UNDP),
the Zhejiang provincial government, and the Ningbo city government.
There were 500 participants.
These were senior officials, logistics experts, and port
administrators from Asia and Europe, as well as top executives of
transport giants, notably Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK-Japan),
Moller-Maersk (Scandinavia), China Overseas Shipping Co. (COSCO),
UPS (US) and DHL (US). While the conference was going while the 10th
Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium and the seventh China
International Consumer Goods Fair was being held nearby.
FVR gave a definition of
logistics as “the process of planning, implementing, and
controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods,
services, and related information from point of origin to point of
consumption in conformity with customer requirements. This includes
inbound, outbound, internal, and external movements, and return of
waste/used materials for environmental purposes.” It apparently
comes from the military’s need and experience, according to
Wikipedia, of being supplied with arms, ammunition, and rations from
their base to a forward position.
He said that among the major
subjects discussed at Ningbo were new approaches in free-port
operations, government-private sector cooperation, and models of
competitive international ports. The participants gave high priority
to “capability-building in ‘emergency logistics’ for timely
and effective responses during natural calamities and other
disasters in the wake of the massive earthquake in Sichuan province
last May 12, which China’s Central Government—with the support
of the UN and donor-countries—has handled with admirable
efficiency and, for the first time, with unprecedented
transparency.”
Linking the Philippines and
China
In his keynote address, he
highlighted Philippine efforts to link with the major markets in the
Asia-Pacific region in order to benefit from our favorable
geostrategic position at the center of East Asia. He emphasized the
fact that “The Philippines is investing a great deal of capital
and human talent to link our vast archipelago with regional markets
and industrial powerhouses. Only through these investments in
logistics systems can the Philippines take advantage of its
strategic location at the heart of East Asia—with easy access to
China, Japan, South Korea and other huge markets.”
He sees the great and countless
opportunities in China’s logistics sector for the Philippines.
FVR calls attention to President
Hu Jintao’s message to President Arroyo and the Filipinos
congratulating us on our 110th Independence Day last June 12 (see
Page A8 for full text). The Chinese president made a commitment
“to further open the three-decade-old bilateral ties between our
two countries, which have entered a new phase of all-around
development.” This, he said, is a reason why Filipinos must desire
and work to maintain favorable relations with China—as other Asian
countries are doing.
“It is in logistics facilities
and operations where new opportunities lie for the expansion of
RP-China trade, investment, tourism and other forms of economic
cooperation. In relation to China’s fast-developing
Xiamen-Ningbo-Shanghai axis, choice Philippine locations are those
along the South China Sea corridor, principally Port Irene-San
Vicente, Cagayan; Poro Point, La Union-San Fabian, Dagupan, Sual,
Pangasinan; Iba, Masinloc, Zambales-Agno, Alaminos, Bolinao,
Pangasinan; Subic-Clark; Bataan Manila Bay-Sangley Point, Cavite;
Batangas-Mindoro Occidental; and Palawan.”
He told me that the authorities
in Ningbo and Zhejiang made it clear to the Filipino delegates at
the conference that they wanted to pursue trade, investment and
joint venture opportunities here in the Philippines. They could see
what great new positive effects could result from such a
partnership.
FVR also said that a delegation
led by Guo Zhengwei, president of the Ningbo People’s Association
for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and Ningbo’s Deputy Chief
of the Communist Party were coming to Manila to begin surveying
opportunities for bilateral cooperation.
--Rene Q. Bas
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