BRI injects impetus into global economy
2023-07-17 09:30:55The Belt and Road Initiative has made significant contributions to global economic recovery through the promotion of infrastructure interconnectivity, analysts said, expressing confidence in the initiative's vigorous development in the future.
The analysts, also members of the Advisory Council of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, made the remarks after attending a council meeting in Beijing to exchange views on BRI construction this week.
China also plans to host the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation this year, which marks the 10th anniversary of the initiative.
Douglas Flint, former HSBC chairman, said the anniversary is a good opportunity to look back on the development of the China-launched initiative and review what the world has benefited from it over the past decade.
He said the initiative is "one of the biggest, if not the biggest, facilitators" of the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and has an "incredibly positive" impact on regional and world development.
Flint said it is "very narrow" to simply focus on issues such as how much BRI infrastructure projects are going to cost, who is going to finance them, and how long it will take for them to be completed.
Instead, one should be aware of the long-term assets they will offer, which include greater trade flows, more active people-to-people exchanges and more technology transfers made possible by the construction of decent infrastructure.
"What's been done around and through the projects … is as important as the actual ports, airports, roads or bridges," he said.
More than 3,000 cooperation projects have taken place under the BRI, creating 420,000 jobs and lifting nearly 40 million people out of poverty, according to official statistics.
The latest examples of projects are the China-Laos Railway, which began operation of international passenger trains in April, and the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway, which is expected to start operating in August, according to Indonesian media.