World leaders gathered in Beijing this month to hear China’s plan for global trade: the One Belt One Road initiative. Nearly70countries and international organizations have signed up for the mega infrastructure project.

How Big is the Belt and Road?

The Belt and Road Initiative will extend from the Chinese mainland to Europe and include more than 60% of the world's population living in 60-plus countries across Asia, Europe and Africa. This will cover 30% the world's GDP, and 35% of world trade.

The Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, a significant development strategy launched by the Chinese government with the intention of promoting economic cooperation among countries along the proposed Belt and Road routes. The Initiative has been designed to enhance the orderly free-flow of economic factors and the efficient allocation of resources. It is also intended to further market integration and create a regional economic co-operation framework of benefit to all.

From 2014 - 2016, China has invested more than 50 billion dollars in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. Obviously the initiative offers new opportunities for enterprises from all over the world entering the new markets along the Belt and Road initiative. During the opening of the “Belt and Road” forum, China pledged at least $113 billion in extra funding for the initiative, and urged countries across the globe to join hands with him in pursuit of globalization.

China has established the multilateral Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the $40 billion Silk Road Fund. These are financial vehicles for BRI infrastructure projects, yet the vast bulk of funding to date has come from China’s big state-owned investment banks.

CeramBath & the Belt and Road

As the market vane of the China’s ceramics industry, CeramBath’s big data represents no doubt the trade trend of the ceramic and bathroom industry. It’s not difficult to find out that the majority of the visitors came from the countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, which shows the great potential of these tremendous markets.

According to our data, the Southeast Asia is absolutely a major market for ceramic industry. Together with the implementation of the initiative, the exportation towards these markets will boost in the future.

Influenced by both supply-side reform and environmental protection policies, the ceramic industry is required to reduce capacity and the whole exportation was under pressure during last year. Thanks to the incentive initiative, the ceramic and bathroom industry will surely be ushering in a new round of transformation and upgrading. 

With a large scale of Chinese enterprises entering the Belt and Road market, CeramBath is engaged to play an important role to guide Chinese ceramics enterprises to go global efficiently.