Chongqing- There is room for Chongqing to optimize and expand the opening-up corridor in the future, including attracting European industrial capital and using Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) regional integration, according to experts and scholars at the first "Seeing Two Rivers" Open Development Forum held recently.

The new China-Europe land corridor

"Chongqing's opening-up corridor construction has already achieved remarkable results," said Liu Sifang, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and President of the Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences.

Relying on the corridor construction, Liu suggested that Chongqing should stabilize its overall economic situation by promoting the construction of the China-Myanmar-Indian Ocean corridor, improving the joint layout of overseas hub ports, and exploring the new China-Europe land corridor.

Meanwhile, Chongqing and those countries along the corridor should explore and establish a linked risk warning and response mechanism, making the corridor a stable, convenient, and sustainable high-efficiency artery.

"Furthermore," Liu said, "Chongqing should utilize the corridor to help build a large unified market, expand the radiation radius of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor (ILSTC), build a trading platform for resources and elements in western China, and accelerate the internationalization and standardization of the land trade regulations."

This approach can be applied to using the corridor to motivate people-to-people exchange along the line, promote the development of cultural trade, expand channels for people-to-people exchanges, and spread the concept of a community with a shared future for humankind.

Meanwhile, Chongqing should comprehensively enhance the international brand effect of ILSTC, continuously improve the overall stereoscopic transportation network, coordinate the development of domestic and foreign trade multimodal transport, and create a smooth and convenient logistics network to improve the efficiency of the corridor.

Liu believes that Chongqing will expand the global reputation and influence of the corridor by joining hands with countries and regions along the corridor to build a new type of international logistics corridor system which is intelligent, green, and human-friendly, cooperating to cultivate a brand of international logistics services.

Attracting European industrial capital

At the forum, Cui Hongjian, researcher and director of the Institute of European Studies of the China Institute of International Studies, analyzed the current situation of the re-distribution of European supply chains, pointing out that Chongqing, as an inland economy, can take various countermeasures to deal with the challenges facing on China-Europe cooperation.

"Chongqing should rely on its industrial foundation and the China Railway Express to Europe," said Cui. "This is to accelerate its transformation into a green and digital economy, forming a new industrial demonstration zone."

Cui continued, further realizing and demonstrating the advantages of location integration; Chongqing should create an open market environment that is continuously attractive to the European industrial capital.

Additionally, Cui suggested that Chongqing should form a new pattern of foreign industrial cooperation with its core technological advantages, focusing on developing the southern, central, and eastern European markets.

It should also strengthen education, tourism, people-to-people exchanges, other software and hardware, and supporting capacity construction to form a comprehensive and systematic cooperation environment.

Improve International Competitiveness

Dr. Cheng Kai from the Institute of Industrial Economics, Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the implementation of RCEP will help enhance the international competitiveness of Chongqing's industrial supply chain, cultivate new advantages in the inland opening, and bring challenges to attract investment, optimize and upgrade industrial structure.

"Chongqing should make overall use of the industrial and financial policies of RCEP regional integration," said Cheng. For example, it can expand new fields of two-way investment and introduce large investment institutions from the RCEP Member States to Chongqing for investment and third-party cooperation.

Specifically, it can promote the expansion of Chongqing enterprises, with a focus on promoting the upgrading of foreign trade and investment in the electronic manufacturing industry and striving to improve the export proportion of the automobile and motorcycle industry as well as the equipment manufacturing industry in RCEP countries.

Besides, Dr. Cheng thinks that Chongqing should give full play to its advantages as the operation center of the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity (CCI) project and increase its guarantee of opening factors.

(Ge Rongchen, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)