Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Spain on November 27 as both countries celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations as well as the 13th anniversary of their comprehensive strategic partnership.
“We have made substantial progress in these 45 years. One of the most important things is that we have built trust and confidence which laid a sound foundation for bilateral cooperation,” Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo, Spanish Ambassador to China, defines the essence of China-Spain relations in recent years with CGTN.
China is Spain's largest trading partner after the EU. Bilateral trade volume rose from 12 million U.S. dollars in 1973 to a record 30.9 billion dollars in 2017. In terms of promoting trade, a China-Europe freight train from China's Yiwu to Spain's Madrid is a good example.
The 13,000-kilometer-long Yiwu-Madrid Railway is the longest of its kind in the world, taking only three weeks for the train to travel from the world's largest wholesale market for small consumer goods, Yiwu, to Spain's capital city Madrid.
“I think it is a very interesting first step and also a process. It is important to complement the marine time trade with railway trade. But we have much room to improve the functioning of this railroad like the infrastructure, cooperation with countries on the road between China and Spain. Also, we need to improve the cost structure which is still not very competitively and marine time trade is still cheaper than the railway. With this long rail link, more issues still need to be refined. The cost shall be reduced and infrastructure needs to be improved,” Spanish Ambassador Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo comments on the Yiwu–Madrid railway line.
As for hi-tech cooperation, Ambassador Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo emphasizes that Spain's advances in biotechnology and renewable energy could be prioritized for cooperation since the energy infrastructure is undergoing tremendous reform in China. Many wind energy enterprises from Spain have already started expanding their business in China.
Mazarredo does not deny that there is still a large trade imbalance between China and Spain. But he sees great opportunities from China as it keeps its momentum of further reform and opening up.
He points out that the two countries have great potential in cooperating in the service market where Spain's banking system, education and tourism will be increasingly needed in China. "As China changes its economic structure, service will become a larger portion of its market…and Spain will be a good partner in the service market."
For the larger picture, China and EU have good relations not only because of practical reasons that EU is China's largest trading partner, but also because they both support multilateralism. "On defending multilateralism, the EU and China are clearly allies."
“We both fight against protectionism and we have to cooperate on that. On defending multilateralism, it is clear that China and the EU are allies,” Ambassador Rafael Dezcallar de Mazarredo concludes.
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