Chinese Ambassador Li Chen during a meeting held at Shangri-La Hotel. (Pic: Kammutty VP/ The Peninsula)
Ambassador of China to Qatar Li Chen yesterday said that China aspires to combine its One Belt One Road initiative with Qatar's vision for development hoping that it would bring “great common prosperity” to both countries.
“The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road also named as One Belt One Road (OBOR) is the greatest initiative and we want to cooperate with many countries economically, culturally including Qatar to increase inter-connectivity between them,” the ambassador said while talking to The Peninsula after an informal session in which a tourism documentary on China was screened for media. The event was organised to mark Qatar-China Cultural Year (2016) that is set to end soon.
Li Chen said that the leadership of both countries had attached importance with the OBOR initiative meant for economic and infrastructure development.
Chen said that relations between two countries were seeing new heights since 2014 when the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited China.
"During this visit the decision to build relations on strategic partnership was taken," the ambassador said.
He said that bilateral trade was growing with the passage of time. “Although on seeing the figures (financial), one may note a slight decrease but it is due to drop in oil and gas prices but the volume is increasing,” he said.
He said that this phenomenon (oil prices impact) was not being witnessed only in case of China-Qatar trade but also in China’s trade with other regional countries and Qatar’s trade with other countries of the world.
To another question, he said that the countries were importing large number of goods from China including Qatar and with the growth of bilateral relations this import would also grow. “Till now only consumer goods were being imported from China, now more and more countries are importing heavy machines and automobiles,” he added.
Economic relations were more than trade, he said, adding many Chinese companies were cooperating with Qatari companies on various projects like Hamad Port, highway, Lusail stadium, Lusail city etc.
In the field of financial cooperation, Chen said some Chinese banks have branches in Qatar and Qatari banks have branches in China.
“We want to broaden mutual investments between China and Qatar to the greatest scale,” he said. Chen said that 2016 was marked as Qatar-China Year of Culture in which both countries hosted a number of events in China and Qatar for cultural exchanges.
To another question about the possibility of China’s winning the project of making long-distance railway network between GCC countries, Chen said: “We have not heard anything from them yet. But, we are willing to engage in such big projects like GCC rail network,” he added.
