Forecasting Eye
We will be holding the launch party for my book ‘Driving the Silk Road – Halfway Round the World in a Bentley S1’ next week and actual publication day is 23 December, just in time for Christmas. The book is published by whitefox*.
As we get close to Christmas it is worth reflecting on what my brother Michael and I did learn as we drove this extraordinary endurance rally in the amazing Bentley car that carried us to the end.
- Whatever their foreign policy, those running Russia have got control over domestic policy. There were no drunks, petty criminals or gangsters visible when we drove all across Russia. We were
told to take $20,000 in cash for ‘special circumstances’. We still had most of it left at the end. This was in sharp contrast to previous rallies when participants crossing Russia faced roadblocks and extortion. - While China’s Eastern seaboard may have slowed down, West China is still growing fast, with cheap labour and supportive government policy. We visited Hohhot, the fastest growing large city in the world. Ten years ago its population was 1 million. Today it is 3 million, slightly bigger than Rome, slightly smaller than Berlin. It is China’s centre for big data.
- Mongolia is about to face extraordinary change. Modern infrastructure, a result of the Belt and Road initiative, will transform the economics of its mining industry.
- Russia and China are integrating economically as transport links proliferate and trade blossoms. This is likely to drive political links.
- There is a Eurasian Economic Union linking Russia with Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Border crossings, otherwise excruciating in that part of the world, are managed quickly and efficiently.
- Trains in this part of the world are huge. They are essentially for freight. The Daqin Railway coal trains from Datong to the Eastern seaboard in China have 210 carriages and takes 20,000 tonnes of freight. If you are waiting for one to pass at a level crossing, best turn your engine off.
- Wind farms in the steppes make ours look tiny. The Gansu wind farm in Inner Mongolia, China has a current capacity of 8,000 MW and a planned capacity of 20,000 MW. The very largest onshore wind farms in Europe and the US are around 500 MW.
- Coal mining is still a major industry in Inner Mongolia. We passed the second and third largest coal mines in the world on our route.
- There are still surprisingly many signs of the old communist societies in Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and even West China. Some of the worse hotels have clearly not noticed the past 30 years of change.
- The UK enforces German speeding fines. Does it work in reverse?
Contact: Douglas McWilliams dmcwilliams@cebr.com phone: 0207 324 2860