China International Contractors Association(CICA) and Germany International Cooperation Institution GIZ jointly held an international workshop on Companies’ Sustainable Development in the Context of “Belt and Road” Initiative on April 17, 2015. Attending the meeting were over 80 representatives from Chinese Ministry of Commerce, foreign embassy to China, NGO in China, members of CICA, and the foreign-funded enterprises and medias.
The Director of Comprehensive Department of CICA Zhang Xiang and the Executive Director of GIZ New Emerging Market Transnational Enterprises Sustainable Development Network Philipp Kruschel addressed the meeting on behalf of the host party respectively. The Deputy Director of Policy Research Department of the Ministry of Commerce Yang Zhengwei introduced the rich historic contents and the great significance of “Belt and Road” initiative, gave an analysis of opportunities and challenges brought to the future development of enterprises and put forward five points of “seeking opportunities, one strategy for one country, risks prevention, benefit bonding (social responsibility) and strategic patience” so as to cope with the challenges. The Deputy General Manager of China Road and Bridge Corporation Du Fei introduced the present situation of the sustainable development of contracted projects industry, shared the company’s practice and cases with attendees and proposed his suggestions of “realizing common development, mutually beneficial results and optimizing industrial environment” in terms of overseas business.
At the link of group discussion, the representatives from Pakistan, Indonesia’s Embassy to China, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World-Wide Fund for Nature, China Railway Construction Corporation Limited, China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd., CGCOC Group, Volvo and the Executive Director of GIZ New Emerging Market Transnational Enterprises Sustainable Development Network carried out in-depth talks on “inclusiveness and sharing between enterprises and local society” and “harmonious development of enterprises and local ecological environment”, shared their understanding of “Belt and Road” initiative as well as some ideas and suggestions for Chinese business to realize the sustainable development.
To conclude the meeting, the Vice President of CICA Chi Changhai said, the “Belt and Road” initiative stressed to create a mutually beneficial “interest group” and “a community of shared destiny” of common development and prosperity for relevant countries, marking a new historic stage of “going global”. The “sustainable development” has strong humanism and humanistic spirit, and coincided with the initiative’s goals of peace, communication, understanding, inclusiveness, cooperation and win-win. The social responsibility of enterprises is the important factor for soft power and competitiveness, and its implementation should be upgraded as well. Chi also put forth several suggestions on enterprises’ social responsibility: firstly, as a first-hand project, the work of social responsibility should be paid more attentions to at the leader level in terms of strategy and system; secondly, the social responsibility should be implemented through specific projects overseas rather than empty talks.
