西班牙智库知华讲堂执行副主席Víctor Cortizo Rodríguez：《马德里和一带一路：一个创新的数字和可持续方案》

发言全文如下

Madrid and OBOR: an innovative, digital and sustainable proposal

It is a great pleasure to be able to greet you from Spain and participate in this event. I appreciate the commitment of all participants who are active in the development and growth of our countries.

These are complicated times in which it seems that many nations are seeking the path of conflict in any of its different actions. The coronavirus pandemic, the financial and energy crisis show us that the right path is that of cooperation and multilateralism.

We have been working for many years in the search for ways of collaboration, promoting meetings and joint reflections, looking for common paths and transforming reality in a positive way.

It is necessary, essential, to seek proposals for rapprochement and to do so with new and creative initiatives. Some very useful institutions in the past have not been able to respond to the new challenges and now new projects are emerging that have universal validity.

From Madrid, we are committed to the growth of the  digital transformation. It is one of the strategic instruments to improve the city by generating public services for all, simple, quality, fast and proactive. This is done with an intensive use of state-of-the-art technological infrastructures: data centers, 5G communications, IoT (internet of things), Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, and promotes the generation of talent and the attraction of investments.

This innovation is enhanced by the intelligent use of resources in cities for economic development with positive impact. This positive impact of digitalization is linked to the sustainability of new business models, smart regulation and public policies appropriate to the new trends. These new trends are already defined as Megatrends and are being researched in the five continents. This is the perspective of Madrid as a smart city, and the role of startup entrepreneurship in economic and digital development and the reception of foreign investors.

This transformation work has to go hand in hand with sustainability.  This is concretized on a day-to-day basis in sustainable tourism and clean mobility, best practices, new productive models, alternative finance, collaborative economy, fostering entrepreneurship and much more.

From Madrid we believe that it is necessary to create a forum for debate on new business models, regulatory trends and innovation that is occurring in cities and, for this, it is necessary to have the participation of all sectors. We need to know what is being done globally and learn about positive projects that can be replicated in different territories. There are many new models such as homesharing, carsharing, coworking spaces or urban gardens, and there will be many more initiatives to discover and share.

The great OBOR project is an instrument to reinforce the promotion of work that strengthens and innovates the economic relationship. OBOR consolidates connectivity between cities and nations by jointly establishing a framework for inclusive economic cooperation that contributes to sustainable development.

There are four dimensions of work:

-Policy coordination to find common ground for different national development policies. There are common areas where collaboration is clear, simple and obvious.

-Creating a land, maritime and especially rail transport infrastructure. Also a digital communications network and energy distribution nodes.  These are all part of a long network of connections of people, products, projects and in general connection.

-The elimination of trade barriers in member countries to facilitate the movement of goods and promote development and peace.

-And to encourage exchanges and contacts between citizens so that they are always the protagonists of the opportunities that this project offers them. It is a project that really improves their living conditions.

It is a way of expressing the traditional millenary concept of Tianxia (everything under heaven), The world today is not a political unit and it is necessary to respect each other and look for ways to move away from chaos, conflicts, non-cooperation and anarchy.

A new model of relations that is based on mutual benefit (win-win) and that, once established, must be given sufficient priority to promote its success.

OBOR has not envisaged any supranational body. Legally and politically, the states included in the plan will remain sovereign and independent, but in practice, economic development would unite the system and benefit common success. The Belt and Road is not an entity with fixed rules, but is deliberately intended to be informal and unstructured. This allows for broad development and growth.

One of the ideas of our work is to develop an OBOR culture in Spain. We have managed to make this project known and many Spanish cities, companies or associations are waiting and looking forward to meet Chinese institutions to participate together in common projects.

This OBOR project has offered the world a global economic cooperation initiative open to all those who want to join it and in a few years it has managed to be highly valued. It is really necessary that there are projects like this one where collaboration is great and with such a clear Win Win dynamic.

This project, mainly economic, also offers us a cultural and social proposal. The exchange of people and projects will offer us an economic growth that will bring peace and prosperity along the whole route. It is truly a great Chinese initiative that can bear much fruit and needs hard work and a long-term view. COVID 19 has been a major global change and it is difficult to know what the consequences may be, but we know that things will be different and that we need to adapt to that circumstance.

We want to find ways to work quickly and respond effectively to these new challenges. To do this, we need to remove barriers and we hope that Europe will soon be able to sign the necessary agreements to promote mutual exchange.

 It is necessary to create a climate of trust and knowledge. From this point of view, initiatives such as this one, which allow us to increase our network of knowledge and trust, are necessary.

Thank you,谢谢！