Poland should position itself for One Belt, One Road project, official says

Majman is confident that the Belt Road initiative spearheaded by President Xi is going to strengthen, with Chinese help, economies along the Silk Road.

"I've been recently to Kazakhstan and all those former post-Soviet, Eurasian countries are very strongly involved with Chinese investments, Chinese infrastructure and Chinese banking. We in Poland see a lot of opportunities for Polish businesses to go to these countries of our interest and work arm in arm with Chinese companies," he says.

In terms of the logistical aspect, Majman says Poland wants to be logistic and industrial hub together with China in both terms, as a land hub and sea hub.

"We can't see a reason why most Chinese cargo comes to Europe via Hamburg or Rotterdam. Why not have Gdansk the Polish seaport specialised in Asia cargo," he adds.

Gdansk, one of the largest sea ports in Europe, ranked 2nd in the Baltic Sea in terms of the number of containers handled. The total throughput in 2015 exceeded 35.9 million tonnes, with the value of cargo handled worth about 52 billion euros, according to Gdansk Port of Authority.

"From our perspective we see opportunities to increase the handling of Chinese cargo in the port, and to build new deep-water cargo terminal dedicated to China with huge storage area and supplemented by a new industrial and technology park," he says.

The same with the land aspect of the Silk Road, Majman says, adding "I see no reason why people in Germany should work so hard handling Chinese cargo. We can help them. More participation of Polish railways, more relief for Germans, and more Chinese cargo loaded to Europe via Poland."

He thinks Poland is properly prepared for it. With the existing networks such as the cargo rail connections from Chengdu to Lodz with trains coming regularly and Suzhou to Warsaw coming less regularly, all Poland needs is to create a real logistical, industrial and technological hub in Lodz, the second largest city in Poland, right in the middle of Europe, to facilitate the trade.

(Lara Wolfe contributed to this story)

To contact the reporter: wangmingjie@mail.chinadailyuk.com