The G20 summit closed in Indonesia two days ago, and Indonesia as the host at the G20 summit came up with its new business card, that is, the Yawan high-speed railway that has just been completed and opened to traffic, Indonesia proudly announced to the world that this is the first high-speed railway in Southeast Asia, and the completion of this railway also indicates that Indonesia's economy will take off wings.
Of course, we talked to you about the previous program, and we are also honored Chinese, because this railway was built by us China with help Indonesia, and at the beginning of reform and opening up, we had a saying that if you want to be rich first, build roads, for the modern economy, nothing is more important than the logistics industry.
In the field, you produce a large number of fresh agricultural products and livestock products, but if you can't transport them, you can't sell them at all, the modern economy pays attention to exchange is exchange, that is, each of them gives play to their comparative advantages, and you can sell your goods to the whole world, and you can take off economically. So it is obvious that the modern economy must be bored to develop and produce the best products, but the more important thing is that you must have a high-speed and developed logistics industry, and the good products you produce must be shipped out, and the freight is cheap enough to be sold to the world.
So in the past, when comparing the economic differences of various countries, we often talked about the continent and India, although India has much lower labor costs than the mainland, so it seems that India has a demographic advantage demographic dividend, but the transportation and logistics industry is also very important. You have a comparative advantage if the goods you produce are shipped quickly and cheaply around the world, so it is clear that many Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia also see the importance of building high-speed rail. High-speed rail can connect important cities in the country and can also help the rapid development of the country's economy, so it is clear that after the successful construction of Indonesia's high-speed rail, more and more third world countries will want to find the mainland to build high-speed rail.
Especially those countries that have suffered from the construction of railways, and when Vietnamese leaders visited China in November, China and Vietnam reached an agreement. Vietnam will connect its domestic railways with the mainland as soon as possible, and in the future we may really help Vietnam build high-speed railways, historically Vietnam was colonized by France for many years, when French colonists built a lot of railways in Vietnam, but French railways are relatively narrow tracks, only about one meter, so it is called meter gauge.
The mainland later helped Vietnam build a number of railways are 1.435 meters of standard gauge, for a long time in Vietnam these two railways have coexisted, so in Vietnam to drive a train is troublesome, often every once in a while you have to change the locomotive, otherwise this track is not possible. The current situation in Vietnam honestly reminds us of the time when the warlords were fighting, Shanxi is also famous for the narrow track, and the warlords in Shanxi are unwilling to replace the narrow gauge with the standard gauge, why? Because the track in Shanxi is narrow, this can effectively prevent other warlords from attacking Shanxi, and if the track is different, you will not be able to transport a large number of troops by railway.
On the one hand, after all, the national strength is not so strong, and it costs a lot of money to replace the narrow gauge left by the French colonial era, on the other hand, the division and integration of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the past few decades has also made the Vietnamese people jealous. We were the ones who enthusiastically helped it back then, and we knew very well what this white-eyed wolf did later, so when China's economy became strong, the Vietnamese were worried, and he was worried that we would crack down harder on him when he became rich, so Vietnam did not dare to connect with the Chinese railway.
However, in the past ten or twenty years, Vietnam's economic growth has also been very rapid, Vietnamese people gradually realized that the bottleneck in the transportation and logistics industry will make it difficult for Vietnam to win the real economic take-off, especially Vietnam to think deeply about the relationship with China, in fact, Vietnam did not think about building high-speed railways in its own country, as early as 2006 Vietnam and Japan reached an agreement, Japan to help Vietnam build high-speed railways.
At the time of the Tokyo Olympics in the 60s of last century, Japan built the world's first high-speed rail Shinkansen, which is technically very mature, and for so many years Japan also hopes to promote the technology of the Shinkansen to the world. In the past, we often said that five or six years ago, when India wanted to build a high-speed railway, both China and Japan went to bid, and finally India chose Japan.
Because Japan told India that I can give you a low-interest loan for up to 50 years, how low is it? The annual interest rate is 0.1%, which is simply a free gift, Japan is eyeing the huge Indian domestic market, so the first high-speed rail should be given to you to practice for free. However, five or six years have passed, and the expected completion and opening time of that year has long passed, but the high-speed railway built by Japan for India still does not even have a shadow, of course, there are various reasons, both Indian reasons and Japanese reasons, but the end is only one that India has not yet had a high-speed railway today.
Vietnam is also like this, in 2006 Vietnam was planning to build a railway by Japan, and in 2011 Vietnam to build a high-speed rail Japan also participated in the bidding, but for more than ten years everything only stayed on paper, but the cost of the project is constantly growing, the reason for inflation, the budget is getting higher and higher in the past ten years, but the shadow of the railway can not be seen at all, so it seems that Japan not only pits India but also pits Vietnam in the matter of building high-speed rail.
And just this year, the China-Laos railway was opened, the high-speed railway between the mainland and Laos was repaired, the future high-speed railway between China and Thailand, and the high-speed railway between China and Myanmar have been put on the agenda, including the high-speed railway we built for Indonesia, the high-speed rail that we may connect with Malaysia and Singapore in the future, and the entire pan-Asian high-speed rail is in planning.
So the Vietnamese are also anxious, especially if we look at the map of Vietnam, a typical north-south narrow land, so in fact, Vietnam's land a whole high-speed railway running through the north and south is very appropriate, if this high-speed railway is completed, Vietnam's economy is a soaring dragon, so the Vietnamese are indeed very anxious.
In recent years, Vietnam's economic growth is very rapid, especially in the past three years, a large number of Chinese enterprises to Vietnam to set up factories, the production line to Vietnam, in the past we often say that we are a textile country, the world's shirts, clothing, boots and shoes are produced in the mainland, now more and more textile orders are transferred to Vietnam, which is very easy to understand, because any country has to upgrade its industry.
Since the reform and opening up 40 years ago, our per capita GDP and per capita income have increased considerably, and today our per capita GDP is about 5 times that of India and 3 to 4 times that of Vietnam, which means that we really have no advantage in India and Vietnam. But on the other hand, isn't the purpose of our economic development to let the people make a little more money, isn't it to get us rid of heavy manual labor, so the future trend is that a large number of labor-intensive industries will indeed transfer from the mainland to India and to Southeast Asian countries.
After industrial upgrading, we can make more money in other fields, so in this sense, we and Vietnam are not competitors but complementary relationships, as we have said in previous programs, after the rapid rise of a huge economy like China, the relationship between neighboring countries and the mainland will undergo profound changes, such as Japan and South Korea.
In the past, upstream of our industrial chain, in the past few decades our market was full of Japanese and Korean goods, at that time we had no competition with Japan and South Korea, we were absolutely complementary, they provided goods We provide a huge market. However, after the strong rise of the mainland economy, everyone found that Japan and South Korea have experienced unprecedented trade deficits since this year, especially Japan, which has been running a deficit for more than a year.
Of course, there is a reason for the appreciation of the US dollar in the global energy crisis, but there is also a very important reason that after the strong rise of the mainland economy, we and Japan and South Korea have changed from complementarity to competition, and we have not only snatched the entire Chinese market back, but also compete with Japanese and Korean goods in the international market in the future.
Just as Korean cars had to compete with high-quality and cheap Japanese cars in the North American market, today we have surpassed South Korea in automobile exports, and we have to compete with South Korea in the field of home appliances, mobile phones, computers and even shipbuilding, including us in the field of high-speed rail, because we are constantly upgrading our industry, so we have to eat our upstream.
But on the other hand, as our industries continue to upgrade, incomes continue to rise, and the value of labor continues to rise, our relationship with India and between us and Vietnam has slowly changed from competition to complementarity. There is no need to say that we should lower workers' wages, reduce production costs, produce cheaper textiles, and then compete internationally with Vietnamese-made shirts, this is meaningless, such fierce competition will not make our people more money.
So we see that the whole trend in the future is that European and American countries place orders, and Chinese companies invest in factories, hire a large number of Vietnamese Indians in their countries to produce textiles to the world, in this sense, the future mainland economy and Vietnam and India are very complementary, we do not have to worry about many low-end industries being robbed by these countries.
To be honest, when the income of our people continues to increase, not many people will do this job, on the other hand, for India and Vietnam, we have gradually become their upstream industry, so to have a good relationship with China, it is necessary to obtain a lot of investment from China to make the country's economy more rapid.
Especially for Vietnam, it has watched its Southeast Asian neighbors have become closer and closer to China over the years, and economic and trade exchanges with China have become more and more frequent, especially when many national railways are connected with China, land transportation is much more convenient and cheaper than sea, so Vietnam is also a little unable to sit still.
This time, Vietnam offered to connect with China's railways as soon as possible, and even in the future, it is not ruled out that Chinese companies will help Vietnam build high-speed rail, if the entire pan-Asian high-speed rail network is completed, then of course, both China and Southeast Asian countries will rise to a higher level of economy because of the development of transportation and logistics. While China and Vietnam are actively discussing the construction of the future Trans-Asian Railway, on the other side of the world, there is still a fierce war between Ukraine and Russia, which has caused continuous blood loss throughout Europe and cast a pessimistic outlook on the world economic outlook.
Russia and Ukraine were brotherly countries decades ago, but after experiencing the instigation of outsiders, coupled with each other's lack of calm, and finally fratricidal, today, whether it is Russia's economy or Ukraine's economy, it is full of holes because of the war, and I don't know how many years it will take in the future to restore such a lesson in the past. I think it is especially important for many countries like Vietnam to reflect on whether it is better to be someone else's pawn or their own master, so I think this is why Vietnam took the initiative to connect the railway with us eight months after the war between Russia and Ukraine.