EU-Asia Connectivity must bring real opportunities to businesses

At the end of September, the European Commission hosted the Europa Connectivity Forum with the main topic being EU-Asia Connectivity: Building Bridges for a Sustainable Future. The aim of the event was to strengthen connections between governments, institutions, businesses and other stakeholders from EU and Asia and discuss how to strengthen the ties even more.

Apart from that, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe signed the Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity and Quality Infrastructure, which is part of the strategic partnership that the EU and Japan concluded last year. It’s a unique partnership that the EU has never concluded with any other partner in the world and it mentions connectivity as one of the key elements of EU’s strategy to be more present at global level. The EU-Asia Connectivity Forum is based on a joint communication called Connecting Europa and Asia – Building Blocks for an EU Strategy – that was released in September 2018. The idea behind the strategy is to increase cooperation between governments that would lead to new business possibilities for the private sector which would be also involved in financing projects focused on developing a digital and physical infrastructure, creating high-level standards, supporting sustainable development and the deployment of clean energy technologies. From the businesses’ point of view, the partnership between the EU and Asia holds a lot of potential, as the economies involved accounted for 65% of world GDP in 2018 and 71% of global growth.

However, in order to foster the opportunities given by the partnership, businesses need to have clear indications in terms of what kind of projects will be supported by the partnership and how they will be financed. When the companies see that the projects are concrete, feasible and backed by sound financial institutions, then they will be willing to invest in it and support clear outcomes of the partnership.