Anthony M. Pagano Director, Center for Supply Chain Management and Logistics University of Illinois at Chicago

China s One Belt and One Road: Implications for the Americas with Emphasis on the US and Panama By Qing Liu Assistant Professor of Maritime Economics University of Hamburg Anthony M. Pagano Director, Center for Supply Chain Management and Logistics University of Illinois at Chicago Onésimo V. Sánchez Independent Analyst and retired Panama Canal Authority Officer Eddie Tapiero Panama Canal Authority INTRODUCTION Proposed and led by China, the "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) initiative involves massive infrastructure investments and ambitious plans to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade in Eurasia and Africa. Involving new roads, rail lines, ports, and pipelines, it aims at boosting connectivity and commerce across the region, with China as the hub. The target region includes more than 60 countries with about 55% of the world s total GDP, 70% of global population and 75% of known fossil energy reserves. With China s central government already committing $124 billion into all related projects, this initiative will be the largest in history if fulfilled. The obstacles, costs and potential rewards are all massive. 1

Although the OBOR initiative was targeted at Eurasia and Africa at the time of birth and is still mainly focusing in these regions in the following projects, it has a global impact and long-term implications for other regions of the world. In this paper, we will describe in detail the OBOR as proposed by China, including the proposed routes and the possible impact on global trade. OBOR will result in substantial competition for many alternative trade routes. The possible impact on the Americas will be assessed including the possible impact on ports, export/import trade and ocean shipping through the Panama Canal. The alternative proposal of the Global One Belt One Road (GOBOR) will be developed in the paper. Implications for US trade policy will be examined. ONE BELT ONE ROAD INITIATIVE Proposed and led by China, the "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) initiative involves massive infrastructure investments and ambitious plans to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade in Eurasia and Africa (Figure 1). The initiative consists of two parts: the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt (hereafter in this paper we will call it as the Economic Belt) and the sea-based Maritime Silk Road (hereafter in this paper we will call it as the Maritime Road), covering areas with more than 60 countries generating 55% of the world s GNP, 70% of the global population, and 75% of known energy reserves. Involving new roads, rail lines, ports, and pipelines, it aims at boosting connectivity and commerce across the region, with China as the hub. China s total financial commitment to the project is expected to reach 1.4 trillion dollars. Beijing has already committed around 300 billion dollars for infrastructural and trade financing in the coming years, including 40 billion dollars to the Silk Road Fund and initial capital of 50 billion dollars to the Chinainitiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) (Casarini 2015). An overview of the completed, undergoing, and planned projects will be provided in the following sections. 2

Figure 1. One Belt, One Road infrastructure projects, planned and completed (Source: (MERICS, 2017)) The Silk Road Economic Belt The Economic Belt is designed to build a new Trans-Eurasian land bridge from China through Central Asia towards Europe. It includes further modernization of existing railroads through Russian territory, and a series of new railways and other road networks. The existing/planned railroads and their main connecting points are explained below: (1) The Northern Route (the orange line in Figure 2): Eastern China (developed cities like Shenyang, Beijing, Zhengzhou, Yiwu, and Wuhan) Manzhouli (border city in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia of China) Russia (Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, and Moscow) Belarusian border town of Brest Poland Duisburg Hamburg and Rotterdam but also as far as London or Madrid. (2) The Mongolian Route (the purple line in Figure 2): Eastern China Zamiin-Uud (a smaller border town of China) capital city Ulaanbaatar of the Mongolian state Irkutsk of Russia merging with the Northern Route. 3

(3) The Southern Route (the yellow line in Figure 2): Central Chinese cities (Xi an, Chengdu, Changsha, Kunming, and Chongqing) Urumqi (the capital of Xinjiang province of China) Dostyk and Alashankou (border cities of China with Kazakh) Astana (the capital of Kazakh) Petropavl (border city of Kazakh with Russia) Yekaterinburg (a city of Russia) merging with the Northern Route. (4) The New Silk Road (NSR) or Iron Silk Road (the grey line in Figure 2): a planned new Central Asian railway network, which plans to go through southern Kazakhsta to reach Europe via the middle east countries, instead of via Russia. From western -/central China to Duisburg, Germany, the Northern Route is about 12,920 km and 22 days, while the Southern Route is 10,320 km and 14 days. The Trans-Caspian route from eastern China to Istanbul (crossing southern Kazakhstan) is 10,648 km and 20-23 days (Nemitz 2017). Figure 2: The Silk Road Economic Belt Among the individual projects, there are some key points. For example, the Khorgos-East Gate is a dry port at the border between China and Kazakhsta, where a train must stop and transfer to a locally-gauged train, because China s rail gauge is 85mm narrower than those in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The special location of Khorgos, just at the heart of Eurasia, makes it one of Kazakhstan's primary dry ports for handling trans-eurasian trains, which travel more than 4

9,000 kilometers between cities in China like Chongqing, Chengdu, and Yiwu and cities in Europe like the London borough of Barking, Duisburg in Germany, and Lodz in Poland 1. Khorgos-East Gate currently has six berths with total capacity to process 540,000 TEU annually. More than just a dry port, the Khorgos-East Gate project includes large scale logistics and industrial zones. With a colossal 5,740 hectares, an entire city is being built here. Khorgos-East Gate is a wholly owned subsidy of Kazakhstan's national railway (KTZ), but is also receiving investment from various sources, including China OBOR funds. For example, China s Jiangsu province has signed an MOU with the Kazakhstan government to invest $600 million into this region. Approximately 65 trains, amounting to 6,200 TEU, per month are currently being transshipped through Khorgos Gateway. Most cargo volume that passes from China to Kazakhstan still goes through the 50% Russian-owned Dostyk port along the China-Kazakhstan border, i.e. the Southern Route in the preexisting Asia-Europe connection (Shepard 2017). The Maritime Silk Road The Maritime Road emphasizes improving connectivity with Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Europe and Africa, by building a network of port cities along the Maritime Route, linking the economic hinterlands in China. Although the Maritime Road is a maritime strategy, it includes more than just port projects, but also cross-land connections like railway and pipeline construction. Projects are implemented or planned in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. Several focuses are the Bay of Bengal, the Northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and East Africa. 1 There are currently 39 such China-Europe routes in operation (Shepard 2017). For example, the London-Yiwu line had the first freight train on June 10, 2017 from London, which will journey 7,500-miles (12,070km) via the Channel Tunnel, through France, Belgium, and Germany, where it will pass from a DB World locomotive to the InterRail and continue via Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazahkstan, before arriving at the city of Yiwu in eastern China after 18 days (Quartz, 2017). 5

Figure 3: Maritime Silk Road The ports in the Bay of Bengal provide an alternative for the current shipping route from the Middle East through the Strait of Malacca to China. Around 80% of Chinese oil imports are from Africa and the Middle East and must pass the Strait of Malacca in the past. The Bangladesh China India Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM) project (the orange route in Figure 3) includes modernizing the ports in the Bay of Bengal and constructing up-to-date railway and pipeline connections to China. If successfully implemented, not only the Strait of Malacca, but also the new Carat Canal in Thailand and other nearby states will be directly impacted especially for trade from and towards South China, and transport patterns in Southeast Asia could be greatly changed. East African nations such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia are seemingly the focus for China. But related projects have popped up everywhere from Cameroon to Namibia and Nigeria. A rail line between the Kenyan port of Mombasa and Kenya s landlocked capital Nairobi was completed in late May 2017, and now carries 7,000 passengers per week (Xinhua 2017). Another newly opened line links land-locked Ethopia s capital Addis Ababa- with the port of Djibouti (Xinhua 2016). Overall, the network connecting Kenya with Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, as well as proving a link between Nairobi and the secondary port of Lamu have been planned. 6

As for the China-Europe trade, especially the northern Europe trade, the current shipping route is through the Suez Canal, then in a wide loop through the Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel to ports on Europe s north-western coast, including Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg, from where they are dispatched by road and rail to inland cities. The Maritime Road projects in the Balkan region include a series of port expansions, inland networks and pipelines. The goal is to ship Chinese products from the Suez Canal directly to the ports on the North coast of the Mediterranean Sea and reach the final European destinations by train, cutting transit times from roughly 30 to 20 days. Port of Piraeus The Port of Piraeus stands out as a prominent OBOR-labeled project. The Greek port is, in fact, the gateway between the Middle East and the Balkans and European markets. Its central location in the Mediterranean Sea has an advantage over other ports. Shipping time to the Port of Piraeus is more than a week shorter than to the ports in the North Range e.g. Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg. The fourth largest shipping company, the Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO, has been investing in the Port of Piraeus since 2008. In 2016, COSCO acquired a controlling share in the Piraeus Port Authority, and made a total commitment of 500 million euros to modernize and expand the port facilities and staff. This makes the Port of Piraeus the only major seaport in the European Union that s entirely managed by a Chinese company (Van der Putten, Montesano, Van de Ven, & Van Ham, 2016). The investment includes a new crane system with higher efficiency and new deep-water docks, and expected higher efficiency of the customs clearance, the port administration, and hinterland connections, etc. (Casarini 2015). As a result, Piraeus has become one of the fastest growing ports in the world with over 3 million containers in 2016, ranked 8 th in Europe, compared to 433,000 in 2008 (Casarini 2015). By 2020 the expected cargo handling capacity will reach 6,300,000 TEU annually, making the Port of Piraeus the largest port regarding terminal capacity in the Mediterranean. (Spiliopoulou, 2016). Railway projects in this region are intended to provide a high-speed rail connection with a speed of up to 200 km per hour extending all the way from the port of Piraeus in Greece to Budapest, 7

Hungary. This is a quick transport route for Chinese goods to reach East and Central Europe (Casarini 2015). These current and planned projects, from north to south, mainly include (Figure 3): (1) A 370 km High-Speed Railway between Belgrade, Serbia and Budapest, Hungary is financed with around 2 billion dollars from China s Export-Import Bank and built by China Railway and Construction Corporation. This will cut travel time from eight hours to less than three. (Casarini 2015); (2) the Greece railway system from Thessaloniki to Macedonia. (3) the Macedonian railway line that connects with the upgraded Hungaro-Serbian High-Speed Railway. Overall, the planned transportation corridor, also named the Land Sea Express Route, from Greece through the Western Balkans to Hungary and the Czech Republic will connect with the China Europe train corridor running east-west via Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands (Van der Putten, Montesano, Van de Ven, & Van Ham, 2016). Thus, Piraeus is not only a bridge for the Maritime Silk Road, but also a hub that connects the MSR to the planned rail network of the EB (Van der Putten & Meijnders, 2015). Figure 4: Land Sea Express Route 8

The North Adriatic ports Other than Piraeus, the North Adriatic ports are also well-located for China s Belt and Road effort and to serve as China s strategic logistical hub to reach Europe. These ports are at the northern tip of Adriatic sea, a natural waterway that penetrates deep into the middle of the European continent, thus providing the cheapest naval route from the Far East via Suez to Europe with a distance that is about 2,000 Nm shorter than other North-European ports. (North Adriatic Ports Association 2018) The near-by fifth Pan-European transport corridor provides a quick-link to central Europe such as Austria, Switzerland and Southern Germany (European Commision, 2017). Large commercial and industrial hubs like Vienna, Munich and Milan are just a few hours drive away (North Adriatic Ports Association 2018). The shipping time to the Central and Eastern Europe Markets from Shanghai is cut down by eight days and 2,400 miles compared to shipping goods to the Port of Hamburg. Five Ports Alliance, mainly financed by China and Italy, is a major container terminal partnership in the northern Adriatic. The project, managed by the Northern Adriatic Port Association, involves the three Italian ports of Venice, Trieste, and Ravenna, as well as port of Koper in Slovenia, and port of Rijeka in Croatia (Figure 4). The project includes a huge multimodal offshore platform eight-miles from the coast near Venice to serve modern ocean giants with water depth of at least 20 meters. The handling capacity of this platform will be somewhere between 1.8 and 3 million TEU per year which is to be compared to 6 million TEU, the current total of all Italian ports combined. (van der Putten et al. 2016). The project, Venice Offshore Onshore Port System (VOOPS), is expected to start construction in January 2018 (European Commision, 2017). When completed, it would provide an almost parallel alternative to the port of Piraeus and the Balkan route, as well as the North-European ports (van der Putten et al. 2016). 9

Figure 5: North Adriatic ports If the Mediterranean ports, North Adriatic ports and Piraeus port, could reach the efficiency and capacity and establish adequate hinterland connections, they would create a serious threat to the North Range ports, e.g. Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg, and could lead to an unprecedented shift in European transport and economy schemes, especially the small countries of Belgium and the Netherlands whose economies heavily rely on their major ports. IMPLICTIONS FOR THE US While much of the focus of recent reports on OBOR (e.g. Luft 2016, Pidalla 2016) have focused on geopolitical and security effects, the focus in this section will be on the economic and trade impacts of this massive investment. Although the US government has officially recognized OBOR in the US-China Trade Agreement of May 11, 2017, it is clear that the US is not one of the 65 countries included in the OBOR. No less than the Trump administration s decision to pull the United States out of the 12-nation Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, the OBOR policy has long-term and profound implications for US companies and customers, as well as for its neighbor partners, such as the Panama Canal. In this section, we will focus on the potential effects that the proposed projects in OBOR will have on the US over the next decades, 10

and possible public policy actions in response. In addition to some projects that have obvious direct implications for US interests, like development of the Russian port of Zarubino which will facilitate a constant Chinese shipping presence in the Arctic, many other projects do not have direct impacts on US-related trade. However, these will have important implications in the long run. US firms across many industrial sectors can benefit from the growing amount of business which is generated from OBOR and the more cohesive economic area. The companies that have past experiences conducting business in some of the OBOR countries will be competitive in obtaining projects or becoming partners with Chinese investors. During the construction phase of the OBOR, opportunities for US firms abound. For example, the New York Times reports that General Electric has received orders for $400 million from Chinese companies in 2014. This has grown to $2.3 billion in 2017. GE plans on bidding on an additional $7 billion in orders for natural gas turbines and power equipment (NY Times 2017). The OBOR will reach deep into developing regions of Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia. It is well known that transportation investments can have significant economic development implications. For example, Pagano, et al (2012) and Pagano et al (2016) estimate how the expansion of the Panama Canal will impact the economy of Panama and the maritime cluster associated with the Canal. They used a Computational General Equilibrium (CGE) model to measure overall impacts on the economy and a gravity model to estimate the impact on the maritime cluster. It is expected that OBOR investments will have very positive impacts on these developing regions, which can result in increased incomes and potential for trade and investment. US firms can take advantage of this opportunity through foreign direct investment, exports and imports from these areas. It is also expected that as barriers to trade come down, countries along the OBOR routes will have an increased demand for overseas investment, consulting, management and other professional services. These can be offered by Western firms while industrial sectors such as telecommunications, finance and energy will all require Western technology and expertise. It has been stated by the Chinese government that OBOR will generate trade and enhance economies over the course of the next decade. This results in a larger economic pie for everyone. US Exports to Europe 11

A potential downside for US exports is that the OBOR will make Chinese exports more competitive in Europe by reducing logistics costs. As Chinese wages continue to rise, the OBOR will ensure that China has a competitive edge based on logistics, rather than low wages. This is a challenge to the US. US exports to Europe may be supplanted by lower cost goods from China. The solution for the US is to make sure that US logistics costs are continually reduced. We need to invest heavily in the supply chain both through public and private investment. President Trump s infrastructure investment initiative is a step in the right direction to reduce the costs of goods shipments to the coasts. Congestion alone adds costs to goods for export that makes the US less competitive. Once at the coasts, US ports on the East and South coasts have invested heavily to accommodate the larger ships moving through the Panama Canal (Wang and Pagano, 2015). This includes deepening ship channels, investing in post-panamax cranes and land side changes. However, much more needs to be done to ensure that port costs are minimized. Investments on the land side to reduce congestion at the docks and the implementation of automation as has been done in Europe and Asia will help to give American goods a competitive edge. The US should not view OBOR as a threat, but rather as an opportunity and a challenge. It will open up many areas of the world which have not participated fully in the global economy. This will provide many business opportunities for US firms. Europe is a challenge. More efficient logistics in the US mainland can help to make US firms competitive with China in this important region of the world. IMPLICTIONS FOR PANAMA Another player that will very likely be impacted is the Panama Canal. Competition between the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal has led some of largest shipping companies to change their routes. For example, in 2013 Maersk Line decided to stop using the Panama Canal to transport goods from Asia to the US East Coast since large container ships help the company move profitably through the Suez Canal. After the expansion of the Panama Canal was finished and the Neopanamax new locks opened to commercial traffic in June 2016, the canal route gained back most of its previous Asia-US East Coast container customers. The threat of competition still exists between the two canals especially for the Asia to/from US east coast cargo. For example, the distance from Hong Kong to Charleston is about 12,000 miles via Suez and 11,000 miles via 12

Panama. From Singapore, it s actually shorter via Suez than through Panama. Due to OBOR, there will be further development of Mediterranean ports and expansion of maritime shipments from Asia through the Suez Canal to visit more ports in Europe. At the same time, the Country of Panama has established diplomatic relations with China in June 2017, which will further extend and strengthen commercial and investment flows. In addition, Panama is evaluating membership in the Latin America Pacific Alliance to further Asia and Latin American commercial flows. Panama and the Canal Authority are developing plans and studies regarding the potential maritime logistics uses of valuable land on both sides of the waterway. At this moment, extending OBOR across the Atlantic/Caribbean into the Pacific, incorporating the Panama route has not been formalized. A more active participation of the US in the OBOR which includes the Panama route would truly enhance globally the OBOR policy naming it Global One Belt One Road (GOBOR). Panama has had relationships with China since the beginning of the 1800s. There were many Chinese migrants from the southern provinces of China and from the US that came to Panama to work, first on the construction of the intercontinental railway connecting the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans, and later for the construction of the Canal. However, relationships with China were mostly commercial and were limited to the extent provided by the US. This is because the Canal was managed by the US and China was seen as an ideological rival in the geopolitics of the cold war. With no formal diplomatic relations with China and with its strong US presence, relationships between China and Panama remained mostly commercial. But during that time, China was not the manufacturing power of the world that it is today. For Panama, the establishment of diplomatic relations with China comes just in time. This action offers China greater legal security for its investment and allows Panama to form an integral part of the OBOR route. The Panama Canal plays an important role in maritime trade between Asia and the United States and the world. It is a connectivity node that can serve as a starting point for a regional distribution center for both Central and South America. This position of greater integration among the Central American markets was mentioned at the OAS meeting in June 2017. 13

Panama is a logical extension of the OBOR. The Panama Canal provides connectivity to the world though connecting 144 maritime routes that connect 1,700 ports in 160 countries. The Canal not only connects the Pacific and Atlantic markets but also provides access to northern and southern markets by sea. It also has land connectivity to the north and possibly land connectivity to the south. Connections to the south by land are impeded in the Darien region but can be developed. See Figure 5 below. One way to understand the impact of the OBOR initiative is to examine the all water route from China in the container segment. In this route, ships with manufactured goods go from China with almost full loads to the east coast of the United States, but most of the ships in the return voyage operate at low loading rate which impacts the overall profitability. Figure 6. Panama s Connectivity 14

However, this situation might change with the OBOR implementations. Europe will become another distribution node in the global supply chain instead of just a final destination, and the conundrum of the return voyage from the US east coast changes significantly. The availability of lower-priced manufactured goods from Central Asia and Africa can provide the extra income to increase profitability of the voyage and strengthen the opportunities for North America-to-Europe trade. In this way, the new OBOR will result in another era for the relocation of manufacturing. The establishment of diplomatic relations with China comes just when the master plan for the development of Panamanian banks has been approved by the government of Panama. This allows China to take a greater role in the development near the Canal. China has significant investments in local ports and this would facilitate maritime development of the area. It is important to carefully develop strategies that coincide with a long-term national vision in order to maintain regional harmony and maximize the benefits that this new opportunity offers. CONCLUSIONS The Chinese economy is a typical example of new emerging markets. High economic growth rate along with well-defined income distribution policies have significantly impacted Chinese society. China has reduced the level of poverty and increased the welfare of about 400 million people in close to 30 years. This accomplishment was made in parallel with another major development: the rise of cities. Between 1981 and 1996, millions of people moved to the cities. These cities, in turn, created another important source of internal demand for raw materials that began to impact world markets. This internal demand along with the external demand from world markets, is one of China s greatest competitive advantages. China s competitive advantage in terms of scale has made China the largest exporter and second largest importer in the world. For this reason, China had to successively invest its savings along with the external flow of capital from FDI. Furthermore, China needs to change its economic model from an investment- and export-based to a consumption- and service-based. China s economy needs to grow on a sustainable basis and as the financial crisis of 2008 showed, relying 15

only on exports is not sustainable. Another reason is that the high rates of investment have also added excess overcapacities domestically. This is why the government is implementing policies to promote the structural transformation towards a consumption-based economy. Yet the transformation will not be an easy one. It implies a lower economy growth rate and consequently an impact on external markets. At the same time, China also needs other countries to grow in order to be able to sell its products and to obtain raw materials. This is one way in which the Belt and Road initiative becomes a key factor in China s long term plan. Since its first appearance on September 2013, OBOR had been discussed mostly in terms of promoting trade, economic development and increasing economic growth through interconnecting the Eurasian continent. This was driven by several economic factors such as a decline in global economic growth and trade but most importantly, the requirement for economy sustainability as China moves forward with its reform. These goals would be done first, by connecting cities across Europe, Asia and Africa with China s hinterlands more efficiently by land and by sea. The expanded connectivity for trade expands the scope to other dimensions that includes the diplomatic, economic, financial, and social. OBOR has become more than a commerce-centric initiative. In this way, China could use the Belt and Road platform to help integrate the world and enhance the opportunities for world peace. This is why China prefers to call the Belt and Road an initiative and not a strategy. Therefore, it could be said that the Belt and Road initiative is an inclusive model of development based on a win-win strategy that furthers relationships between the nations. This is why the initiative also has a cultural part that enhances the social connectivity between nations. Even though it is difficult to separate the economic and social aspects from the geopolitical, in the end, the main assumption is that expanded dialog between the countries that are aligned under common interests will help reduce wars and anxiety in the world. OBOR will result in a larger economic pie for everyone. Although the American continents are currently not included in the OBOR initiative plan, in the long term these countries cannot avoid it and will be definitely affected. Therefore, it is better to join proactively. US firms across many 16

industrial sectors can benefit from the growing amount of business which is generated from OBOR and the more cohesive economic area. A potential downside for US exports is that the OBOR will make Chinese exports more competitive in Europe by reducing logistics costs. The solution for the US is to make sure that US logistics costs are continually reduced by investing heavily in the supply chain both through public and private investment. A more active participation of the US in the OBOR which includes the Panama route would truly enhance globally the OBOR policy naming it Global One Belt One Road (GOBOR). The Country of Panama has established diplomatic relations with China in June 2017, which will further extend and strengthen commercial and investment flows. This action offers China greater legal security for its investment and allows Panama to form an integral part of the OBOR route. References Casarini, N. (2015). Is Europe to Benefit from China s Belt and Road Initiative? Technical report, IAI working papers 15/40. Christina Lin (2016), China Drops Anchor in Mediterranean Ports, MERICS Blog, 25 May. European Commision. 2017. VOOPS Venice Offshore Onshore Port System. Retrieved August 24th, 2017, from https://ec.europa.eu/eipp/desktop/en/projects/project-19.html Bloomberg, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-11/maersk-line-to-dump-panama-canalfor-suez-as-ships-get-bigger.html How can Western firms benefit from the most ambitious infrastructure plan in the world? https://www.eastwestbank.com/reachfurther/news/article/new-opportunities-in-chinas-one-belt-one- Road-Initiative Gal Luft, It Takes A Road: China s One Belt One Road Initiative: An American Response To The New Silk Road. Institute for Analysis of Global Security, November, 2016. MERICS. 2017. China mapping Silk Road Initiative. Retrieved July 8th, 2017, from https://www.merics.org/en/merics-analysis/china-mapping/china-mapping/ Nemitz F. 2017? Alte Seidenstrasse auf neuen Wegen. Germany Trade & Invest Almaty New York Times,.2017. U.S. Firms Want in on China s Global One Belt, One Road Spending. By KEITH BRADSHER, MAY 14, 2017. Https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/14/business/china-one-belt-one-road-uscompanies.html 17

North Adriatic Ports Association. 2018. http://www.portsofnapa.com/. Accessed Feb 04 th, 2018. Padilla, T, Analysis: China to shape international trade via Belt and Road www.joc.com June 9, 2017. Pagano, Anthony M, Light, Miles, K, Sanchez, Onesimo, and Ungo, Ricardo, Impact of the Panama Canal Expansion on the Panamanian Economy, Maritime Policy and Management, Vol 39, No 7, 2012, pp. 705-722. Pagano, Anthony M, Wang, Grace, Sanchez, Onesimo, Ungo, Ricardo, and Tapiero, Eddie, The Impact of the Panama Canal Expansion on Panama s Maritime Cluster. Maritime Policy & Management, 43:2, 164-178, DOI: 10.1080/03088839.2016.1140241, March, 2016. Spiliopoulou, M. 2016. Feature: Chinese-managed Piraeus port continues to grow at rapid pace, as new milestone nears. Retrieved August 23rd, 2017, from Xinhuanet: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-03/13/c_135184326.htm Shepard, W. (2016). Why Kazakhstan Is Building A New Dubai On The Chinese Border. Forbes. Shepard, W. (2017). Khorgos: The New Silk Road s Central Station Comes To Life. Forbes Selina Cheng, Quartz. 2017. The New Silk Road's first freight train from the UK has set off for China. HSBC news. van der Putten, F.-P., & Meijnders, M. 2015. China, Europe and the Maritime Silk Road. Clingendael Report. van der Putten, F.-P., Seaman, J., Huotari, M., Ekman, A., & Otero-Iglesias, M. 2016. Europe and China s New Silk Roads. Technical report, European Think-tank Network on China. Wang, Grace and Pagano, Anthony M., Select US Ports Prepare for Panama Canal Expansion. NAIOP Research Foundation, Herndon, VA, January, 2015. Xinhua. 2016. Ethiopia, Djibouti launch Africa's first modern electrified railway. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-10/05/c_135733669.htm Xinhua. 2017. Kenya's new railway ferries 7,000 customers a week after launch. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-06/07/c_136347777.htm 18

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