8. Active Participation of Businesses of Different Sizes

Businesses are important players in China-CEEC practical cooperation and implementers of various projects. Under the China-CEEC framework, a series of sectoral cooperation platforms have been established to provide quality services for Chinese and CEEC businesses to better cooperate, such as the China-CEEC Business Council, the China-CEEC SME Coordination Mechanism and the China-CEEC Association of Tourism Promotion Agencies and Businesses. A variety of events, such as forums, working meetings, product presentations and expos, have been organized on these platforms to enable Chinese and CEEC businesses to establish contacts and carry out cooperation, which has been successful so far. For example, at the second China-CEEC Forum on SME Cooperation held in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, contracts were signed on 38 projects between Chinese and CEEC businesses, with a total investment of 7.292 billion RMB yuan, covering a variety of areas such as drones, medical equipment, bio-medicine, culture, education, R&D, technical cooperation, environment-friendly equipment, modular integrated housing and modern logistics. Both China and CEECs have a large number of SMEs. To foster a stable and predictable environment for SMEs to develop and help them better integrate into the global value chain have become a major task of the China-CEEC SME Coordination Mechanism.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) of China have been playing an important role in pushing forward economic cooperation, trade and investment with CEECs. These SOEs are usually well-established, technologically advanced and have an overseas presence, and they are particularly experienced in equipment manufacturing and engineering construction. That is why Chinese SOEs can often be found in major CEEC projects. Important ongoing or completed projects undertaken by Chinese businesses in CEECs include the Budapest-Belgrade Railway, the China-Europe Land-Sea Express Line, the Stanari Thermal Power Plant in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Smokovac-Meteševo Highway in Montenegro and the Smederevo Steel Plant in Serbia, etc.. Chinese SOEs have implemented or completed the relevant projects with a high standard in accordance with market principles, and in the meantime, demonstrated a good image through attaching great importance to localized management and assuming corporate social responsibilities.

A considerable number of Chinese private businesses have started operating in CEECs in recent years. Big Chinese companies such as Huawei Technologies, Wanhua, Linglong Group, Alibaba, BGI all have major investment or acquisition projects in CEECs, and sometimes private businesses from the same locality (e.g. Zhejiang Province) even invest as a group in the region. Vibrant business-to-business cooperation has injected vitality to China-CEEC Cooperation and helped all players achieve practical results in cooperation.