Benefits

Siong Seng Teo (Chairman of Singapore Business Federation): During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), China built maritime exchanges with Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The voyage logs by China's famous navigator Zheng He recorded the historic role played by Singapore in the Maritime Silk Road.

Compared with the ancient Maritime Silk Road, Singapore can play a bigger role in the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Singapore is a key maritime and logistics center in the Asia-Pacific region, with a sound infrastructure; therefore it can be an intermediate center, supply center and maintenance center of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Singapore can be a springboard of Chinese companies eyeing overseas expansion. It can also help China better carry out regional cooperation with ASEAN. Members of the Singapore Business Federation are planning to organize a seminar on 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Singapore.

Khin Maung Lynn (Joint Secretary of Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies): Situated between China and India geographically and strategically, Myanmar stands to benefit both as an ASEAN member as well as a good neighbor of China from the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Therefore, Myanmar should study all options of linking with this initiative and get maximum benefit for the country and people.

It's common sense that the maritime Silk Road initiative is the most logical and practical way of connecting countries between our regions. Maritime transport is also the easiest means of connectivity among distant regions and the present low oil prices will definitely help in decreasing costs in transport. With natural deep-sea ports along its long coastlines, Myanmar has an advantage in assisting and promoting international maritime transport network. What Myanmar needs is good planning, good management, financial contributions for its infrastructure development, training, human resource development and logistical support.

Myanmar hopes to have significant financial assistance and investment from heavyweight neighbors like India and China and both regional and global international financial organizations, for its infrastructure development to be able to support for the success of regional economic integration and enhanced connectivity.

Madan Kumar Dahal (Chairman of Mega Bank Nepal Ltd.): Nepal does not have direct access to the sea. This is the main issue confronting Nepal. There are more than 6,000 rivers in Nepal. We need to develop navigation so that we can reach the sea from our rivers. Navigation infrastructure development is very important. Therefore, an inland country like us can greatly benefit from the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road to connect us to the sea. Developing relevant infrastructure and technologies require huge investment. We expect China to be our close country, a very friendly country and to help us build navigation and improve Nepal's navigation technology.

In addition, the electricity supply often falls short of demand in Nepal and blackouts often occur, but our country sees huge potential in hydropower. We hope China can help us develop that too. We will also advice our neighbor India to embrace this initiative.