“China will endeavor to build a win-win business partnership with other countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, ” said President Xi.
China is pledging more than $100 billion to finance projects under its “One Belt, One Road” strategy, an ambitious initiative to strengthen the world’s second-largest economy’s investment, influence and trade links to the rest of the globe.
“China will endeavor to build a win-win business partnership with other countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, ” President Xi Jinping said in his opening speech at a two-day forum on the plan. “These efforts are designed to promote growth both in our respective regions and globally.”
A spate of foreign officials and business leaders have gathered in Beijing this weekend to discuss Xi’s investment initiative, first announced in 2013. The plan aims to connect Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa with a vast logistics and transport network, and involves 65 countries. Together, they account for one-third of global GDP and 60 percent of the world’s population, according to Oxford Economics.
In the long run, China’s big pledge could “help boost global trade, investment, and financial cooperation, ” said the International Monetary Fund’s Christine Lagarde . “By sharing the benefits of investment and knowledge more broadly, growth will be stronger, more durable and more inclusive.
