The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is at the verge of completing ten years since its inception in 2013. So far, two sessions of Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation have been held in 2017 and 2019 respectively, and the third has been announce to be held in 2023. The BRI, along with many other initiatives pronounced as global public goods are major flagships of China for international cooperation. The Silk Road Fund, China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank have been pronounced as financial institutions supporting the initiative.
A stock of the BRI in the past years tells us that the initiative has moved from five major goals – promoting policy coordination, facilitating connectivity, uninterrupted trade, financial integration and people-to-people exchanges – to a high-quality and green development. According to the Belt and Road Portal, as of January 6, 2023, the friend circle of Belt and Road countries has extended to 151 countries and 32 international organisations. China's total export and import with the BRI countries reached around 2.02 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022, registering 19.4 percent growth over 2021.
According to a recent report published by Christoph Nedopil Wang of Green Finance & Development Center of Fanhai International School of Finance, Fudan University, since 2013, China's cumulative BRI engagement amounts to 962 billion U.S. dollars, about 573 billion U.S. dollars in construction contracts, and 389 billion U.S. dollars in non-financial investments.
Major projects completed or under completion include: Greece's Piraeus Port, Serbia's state-owned Zelezara Smederevo steel plant, the China-Belarus Industrial Park, the water supply project in Senegal, China-Laos Railway, the central business district (CBD) of Egypt's new administrative capital, the China-Europe freight train, Colombo Port City, the Orange Line Metro Train built under the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Lahore, the Santa Cruz Hydroelectric Project in Argentina, the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway, the Gwadar Port and Djibouti-Addis Ababa and Mombasa-Nairobi railways. Undoubtedly, these massive projects have contributed to the local development and provided employment opportunities to thousands of people.
Furthermore, the BRI projects are also integrated to new technologies such as e-commerce, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency and efficacy of the projects. Meanwhile, we will see China accelerating the construction of free trade pilot zones, cross-border and economic cooperation zones etc. along the Belt and Road countries for promoting regional economic integration.
In the present global context, the power discourse emanating from China in the forms of building communities with shared future, Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and the recent Chinese style modernisation, is likely to add a new perspective to the western dominated discourse power, and further push the construction of the BRI. (Contributed by B. R. Deepak)
The views and opinions don't necessarily state or reflect those of Xinhua Silk Road.
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