At present, the global economy is not yet out of the shadow of the epidemic, and economic recovery faces many difficulties. Flint, former chairman of HSBC Group, who participated in the fifth meeting of the Advisory Committee of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, recently pointed out in an interview with reporters in Beijing that at present, the global economic recovery is weak, and the international community needs to think about how to optimize the supply chain configuration, but it needs to be vigilant about individual countries to optimize the supply chain on the grounds of protectionism.

In the interview, Flint explained his views on how to deal with the current challenges facing the international economic and trade development. He believes that the most important thing now is to improve trade relations and create opportunities for companies that want to expand their services around the world. At the same time, the supply chain configuration should be optimized.

Flint specifically pointed out that the current globalization is facing a countercurrent, and supply chain disruption is one of the main challenges facing people. In the process of optimizing supply chain configuration, individual countries have used this as an excuse to engage in protectionism, concentrating relevant activities only within their own geographical borders.

In my view, protectionism is regressive because it only divides the world, whereas the lessons of COVID-19 and challenges such as climate change have taught us the importance of seeing the world as a whole. Flint said we need a better spirit of cooperation to combat the polarization of the world that protectionism could lead to.

As for the topic of de-risk, which is widely concerned by the international community, Flint believes that the concept of de-risk should be reasonably defined. For example, he pointed out that if a country realizes that it is ill-prepared during the COVID-19 pandemic and expands the relevant industrial chain to deal with the next possible pandemic, such de-risking is worth advocating.

On the other hand, an excessive emphasis on de-risking is detrimental to the creation of global wealth. Flint said that global innovation is not without risk, trade is not without risk, global growth and economic advantage is not without risk. We cannot create a world where people don't want to take risks, and if we try to avoid all risks, there will be no global economic growth.

Flint is also concerned about the current wave of de-dollarization in many countries around the world. He believes that the US dollar has a huge privilege by virtue of its dominant position in the international monetary system, and the emergence of the wave of de-dollarization has a certain inevitability. Because a dominant currency is to a large extent a financial weapon, a country with a dominant currency can use this privilege to shape its foreign policy, which can pose threats to other countries, and these threats may lead some countries to actively expand their currency numbers and adjust their trade arrangements.

While the dollar will remain the world's largest trading currency and reserve currency in the short term, it will become less important over the next few decades, and time will tell. Flint said.

The year 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China. Flint, who was the Special Envoy of Finance and Professional Services for the Belt and Road Initiative of the British Treasury, also spoke to reporters about the changes he has witnessed brought about by the Belt and Road Initiative.

Looking back on the 10 years of development of the Belt and Road, Flint was impressed by the achievements in infrastructure construction, he said that the Belt and Road has built the best infrastructure in the world for countries facing the challenge of infrastructure investment, and has also created an economic activity system around these infrastructure and achieved economic growth.

He noted that in the infrastructure construction led or participated in by China, the Chinese have fully demonstrated their construction expertise. Bringing expertise and cost-effectiveness to construction, the Chinese are the most successful large-scale infrastructure builders in the world, and they are demonstrating their limitless potential in building projects across the globe.

Flint has been closely following the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative for a long time, and he found that many projects under the initiative provide financial and professional services to third world countries, as well as policy support, and are aimed at promoting local development. These projects bring home the fact that the Belt and Road Initiative is global in many ways.

Talking about the expectation of promoting the high-quality development of the Belt and Road in the future, Flint pointed out that the initiative can play its own advantages in promoting the process of globalization. Globalization requires multi-party integration, including both hardware and software facilities. As it turns out, the Belt and Road has clearly played a huge role in both aspects. Editor/Xu Shengpeng