A special seminar centered on advancing the cross-border coordinated development of Guangxi's maritime economy was recently convened in Nanning. With the imminent opening of the Pinglu Canal, the region's maritime economy has entered a critical phase of comprehensive quality enhancement. Representatives from regional government departments, premier think tanks, financial institutions, and industry leaders gathered to offer strategic input on ASEAN-oriented cross-border collaboration, pooling industrial strengths to drive maritime ambitions.
Officials from the regional government highlighted that Guangxi is spurring a region-wide shift toward maritime development, aiming to establish cross-border industrial chains deeply integrated with ASEAN. This creates a shared path for an open, interconnected Guangxi advancing through its maritime economy. Their remarks emphasized integrating the broader region into a unified, collaborative growth model anchored around ASEAN partnerships.
During the forum, Sealand Securities unveiled a comprehensive report detailing the development prospects and industrial layout advantages of offshore wind power in Guangxi for the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Drawing on insights from its ASEAN Research Institute and Guangxi Industrial Research Institute, the brokerage has unified pathways across policy, industry, and investment research. The firm recommends forging connections between specialized innovative enterprises and industrial capital, vigorously advancing blue finance, and channeling capital capabilities into port-based industries and emerging marine sectors, driving the clustering of related industrial chains around ports and canal corridors.
Representatives from two central energy enterprises, State Power Investment Corporation Guangxi and Huadian Guangxi, shared practical experiences centered on industrial execution. They expressed intentions to integrate deeply into the Western Land-Sea Corridor initiative, concentrating on emerging maritime sectors such as offshore wind power and blue carbon economy. By leveraging their technological advantages and energy resources, they aim to foster a clustered marine energy development model, contributing to a green and low-carbon maritime industrial system.
Addressing cross-border financing challenges, Guangxi Financing Guarantee Group presented innovative solutions tailored to new cross-border maritime economic scenarios. The group plans to develop a guarantee service ecosystem suited for cross-border operations and strengthen a multi-tiered risk-sharing mechanism. This approach precisely tackles financing difficulties confronting asset-light cross-border business entities. Notably, over the past five years, the group has provided total guarantee support of 270 billion yuan to 220,000 business entities throughout the region.
Experts attending the forum underscored ASEAN’s status as a strategically vital region for RMB internationalization. With continuous improvements in financial infrastructure—including local currency settlement and multi-central bank digital currency bridges—Guangxi enterprises stand well-positioned to expand local currency settlement and digital RMB cross-border application scenarios, mitigating currency mismatch risks in cross-border transactions.
Functional departments including the regional Development and Reform Commission, Department of Industry and Information Technology, Ocean Bureau, Department of Transportation, Development Research Center, and Park Office participated in the event. Participants engaged in thorough exchanges covering critical topics such as tackling logistics bottlenecks in the corridor and fostering industrial clustering and agglomeration. All attendees pledged to deepen collaboration across government, business, and research sectors, seizing opportunities presented by the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0 to transform channel advantages into tangible industrial outcomes, construct deeply interconnected China-ASEAN cross-border industry chains, and propel the high-quality development of Guangxi's maritime economy.