I. International cooperation in building consultancy & design in Beijing

Generally, developed countries such as the UK, France, USA and Australia are leading in the world in building consultancy & design, as some landmark buildings in Beijing were codesigned by China and these countries. The UK was the first country in the world to propose the concept of “creative industry”, and supported its development through public policies. As the capital of designing, London boasts handsome revenue of cultural and creative industry, which accounts for 20% of the total economic volume. The world-enowned TFP of the UK has participated in conceptual design of many big public buildings in China. Here are some successful designing cases in Beijing which are the results of international cooperation.

 

1.Ongoing programs

 

In February this year, the design plan of the main venue in Zhangjiakou---host city of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics---was officially published; as this stadium will hold the games of the Winter Olympics and Asian Winter Games, there will be many ice and snow games, thus it needs to enjoy high technical standards. Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, the winning bidder, invited Auer Weber of Germany, a company with rich experience in designing Olympics stadiums. In July last year, the National Speed Skating Hall
launched an international competition for the building’s conceptual plan. After pre-examination of qualification, 12 designing institutions from China, Germany, France, the UK and Australia won the chance. Another example was in July last year, when the subsidiary urban centre of Beijing sent intention invitations to 50 designing teams around the globe; eventually 12 joint designing teams from 9 countries and regions were chosen, and they would participate in the design of the overall urban layout and detailed plans of key
areas.

 

The “starfish” design of Beijing’s new airport was the result of cooperation between the British female architect Zaha Hadid, her architect firm with the same name and Paris airport company. This joint team spent more than 3 months finishing the concept plan. The Z15 area of Beijing CBD chose “CITIC Tower” plan after a designing competition. This plan was dominated by Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, and joined by TFP Architectural Design Company from the UK, ARUP Engineering consultancy and MVA. Combining several functional systems including urban transportation, low-carbon energy and commercial organizations, this building will become another landmark in Beijing. The Kejingyuan Ecological Innovation Park, also known as K20 industrial park, located in Shunyi Park in Zhongguancun Beijing consists of 13 buildings, covering an area of 72 thousand square meters. This industrial park was designed by German famous architect Achim Nagel, under the guidance of International water and environmental experts, Professor Max Dohman from RWTH Aachen, and the environmental 4.0 program was introduced during this process. In October 2016, the Deutsche Platform Co., Ltd (DUP) signed the agreement and intended to set up its office in the industrial park.

 

2.Completed programs

 

Some completed international designing programs in Beijing have already gained international fame. For instance, the main building of T3 terminal of Beijing Capital Airport was jointly designed by Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, Netherlands and UK Fox Company. The headquarter building of CCTV designated Mr. Rem Koolhass from Netherlands as the chief architect and designed by OMA.NL; the total designing cost was as high as 350 million yuan, with each square meter costing 630 yuan on average. The national Stadium was responsible for the opening ceremony, closing ceremony, track and field games of 2008 Beijing Olympics, and this stadium was co-designed by China Architecture Design Institute, Switzerland Herzog & de Meuron Architekten and ARUP. The National Aquatics Center was co-designed by CSCEC, CESI(Shenzhen) Australia PTW and ARUP after a global designing competition. The National Centre for the Performing Arts was designed by Paris Airport Company with Paul Andrew as the chief architect. It emonstrates
the harmonious integration of people and people, people and art, and people and nature. The new venue of Capital Museum was jointly designed by China Architecture Design Institute and AREP Design Company, and the concept behind was to “put people and cultural relics first so as to serve the society”, stressing “the harmonious unity between the past and future, between history and modern times, and between art and nature”. The second phase of National Library and the digital library project was co-designed
by KSP Engle Zimmerman architecture design co., LTD and Huadong Architecture Design Institute. The building was in a neat shape with low height, and the operation cost was low; it has naturally filled in the current layout of library buildings. The headquarter building of CNPC---the largest petroleum conglomerate of China, was partly designed by UK TFP architecture design company.

 

In 2016, Beijing completed 846.2 billion yuan of fixed asset investment, an increase of 5.9% year on year. In recent years, the growth rate has been staying at around 6%, and it is estimated that in 2017 the total volume of fixed asset investment of Beijing will be near 900 billion yuan. In 2016, key projects of Beijing finished 257.4 billion yuan of investment, and the planned investment in 2017 for key projects is 274.4 billion yuan. If the designing cost will be a modest 2%, it will still mean huge market potential. Beijing welcomes the participation of outstanding designing teams around the globe, so as to enrich international business of designing institutes and diversify styles of architecture in Beijing.

 

China is promoting the development of green buildings. In 2010, a national standard for green construction of buildings was released, and in 2014 a national standard on evaluation of green buildings was released; in 2015, a local standard for evaluation of green buildings was introduced by the government of Beijing. According to these tandards, design for buildings of living shall gradually be 80% energy-saving public-welfare buildings invested by governments and large-scale public buildings have to rank two-star and above in green buildings system. China encourages the development of building technologies that are super-low energy cost, and promotes model projects that have almost zero emissions. We welcome excellent international consulting firms to raise suggestions for green buildings in Beijing.

 

II. International cooperation in architectural project contracting

 
Chinese companies have participated in the international architectural contracting market since 1979, and develop rapidly; they have experienced the phase of developing from
nothing, from weak to strong, and from low-end to high-end. Manchester airport city, for example, is developed by Beijing construction group and Manchester airport group cooperation, the contract value is as high as 800 million pounds (including China business district projects worth 130 million pounds), will provide 500 square feet of commercial space, create more than 16,000 jobs. Chinese investment value in the UK during the last three years is equivalent to three times over the past 30 years, the investment is mainly for infrastructure construction. The scope of business of Chinese international contractors include housing construction, road traffic, and develop to the petrochemical industry, power engineering, mine construction, electronic communications, environmental protection, aerospace, peaceful use of nuclear power, and the engineering design consulting services, and many other fields. For instance, the Beijing institute of architectural design has participated in the renovation of the general consulate in Frankfurt,
Germany, and the design of the new Chinese embassy in Bulgaria during the past two years. Nuctech Warsaw Company Limited supplies high tech security products and technical services for projects of Hungary RF-railway system, Swedish customs, Latvia customs, security in Denmark and Estonia. In recent years, The Sinovel Wind Technology (group) co., LTD. has been involved in K&M project in Sweden, and has installed their wind turbines that are independently developed, designed and manufactured.

 

In 2016, China's foreign contracted projects completed sales of 1.06 trillion yuan (us $159.4 billion), and achieved 3.5% year-on-year growth. The new contract was 1.6 trillion yuan ($244 billion), up by 16.2% year on year. Currently, there are three features of China's foreign project contract:

 

The first feature is that the contracts mainly focus on large projects worth more than $50 million.

 

In 2016, there are 815 projects with the value of more than 50 million dollars in the Chinese international architectural contracting, the total value was $206.7 billion, accounting for 84.7% of the total amount of new signing contract, the average contract price of these big projects is $250 million, or about 1.75 billion yuan per contract.

 

In 2016, several international capacity cooperation and infrastructure interconnectivity projects such as Addis ababa - Djibouti railway (achish railway), China - Pakistan economic corridor (China-Pakistan economic corridor) were successfully implemented. Chinese construction companies constantly refresh the overseas project records. The projects comprehensiveness is stronger and stronger, the contract value is bigger and bigger and the cooperation mode is continuously innovated.

 

The second feature is that the countries along the Belt and Road account for about 50% value of China's foreign architectural project contracting.

 

Along with the development of the Belt and Road, the projects of countries along the belt and road have become the focus of China's foreign projects. In 2015, the value of newly signed international engineering contracts of the Chinese enterprises in the region of the belt and road was $92.6 billion, accounting for 44% of China's new signed foreign contracted projects in the same period. In 2016, the value of newly signed international engineering contracts of the Chinese enterprises in the region of the belt and
road was $126 billion, accounting for 51.6% of China's newly signed foreign contracted projects in the same period. According to the turnover of China's foreign contracted projects, in 2016, the total value of countries along the Belt and Road as about $76 billion, accounting for about 48% of total volume.

 

Continuous growth is expected in 2017. We hope to cooperate with foreign companies to expand the broad market of "the Belt and Road" and help countries along the belt and road to achieve connectivity and make benefit for the people.

 

The third feature is that the internationalization of Chinese architectural enterprises faces many risks and challenges.

 

We see at the same time that the internationalization of Chinese architectural enterprises faces many risks and challenges. China's companies of undertaking large foreign
projects are large domestic architectural enterprises, especially the central enterprises, however many small and medium-sized construction enterprises, local enterprises are

still in their infancy, it is difficult to go overseas. Even large construction enterprise, also face risk in overseas project contracting, including but not limited to: not familiar with the local legal policy, contract conclusion and performance risk due to local political and social stability problems, construction inconsistent problem due to different technical standards between China and foreign countries, business risks due to exchange rate and interest rate changes. For example, according to BBC, the Hinkley British (Hinkley Point) C nuclear power station project was scheduled to sign the contract officially on July 29, 2016, however the UK announced to suspend the project accidentally 11 hours before signing contract.

 

Under the background of economic globalization, "going global" is an inevitable requirement for Chinese enterprises. With the belt and road’ initiative, Chinese international engineering contracting enterprises will continue to expand market share, transfer from the traditional general contracting mode to EngineeringProcurement-Construction mode (EPC), BuildOperate-Transfer mode(BOT) transfer mode, Public-Private Partnership mode (PPP), and gain development opportunities during transformation. Chinese architectural design and construction enterprises hope that through international communication and cooperation, they can raise their ability continuously, develop international vision, expand market share, and achieve multi-win-win situation.