European Chamber chief voices scepticism against the BRI
Filip Lauwerysen, executive director of the European Chamber of Commerce Myanmar, wrote to The Myanmar Times and said that the Myanmar government and businesses should be cautious about the BRI, a scheme which he saw as a move by China to align the terms of trade and determine technical and environmental standards more closely with the domestic Chinese practice and hence increase China’s competitiveness: As someone who worked in China for many years and followed China’s foreign policy closely, I would advise caution when it comes to the BRI, We should first look at the motives behind the scheme’s establishment. The BRI is an answer to a wide range of serious domestic problems China is facing, such as a strong increase in wages, a big drop in export to its traditional markets, severe industrial overcapacity and the issue of where to invest its enormous foreign exchange reserves.
