Interview: China's Belt & Road Initiative "most impressive development project of the century": UN body chief

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Leaders from 29 countries will gather in Beijing for a two-day summit starting May 14, 2017 to discus details of the Silk Road initiative.

Iran says it is fully on board to help revive Silk Road, an ancient trade route for a thousand years which China plans to expand between Asia, Africa and Europe. 

Leaders from 29 countries and ministers and top officials from many others will gather in Beijing for a two-day summit starting on Sunday to map out development of the "Belt and Road" initiative.

Delegates are about to discuss the plan which involves hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decades, underpinned by building ports, railways and power links across Asia and on to Europe.

Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia arrived in the Chinese capital on Saturday to represent the country at the forum, IRNA news agency reported.

Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia 

“Iran will employ all its power, cooperation and effort for better implementation and completion of this initiative because it believes that the plan will play an important role in the global development and relations among countries,” he said.

Chinese government officials say more than 50 memorandums of understanding, plans, cooperation letters and cooperation projects in transportation, energy and communications will be signed during the meeting.

Officials walk outside the China National Convention Center, the venue for the upcoming Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing. (Photo by AFP)

The Asian economic giant says its businesses signed projects worth $304.9 billion in Belt and Road countries between 2014 and 2016, but more is in the pipeline and investments of almost $1 trillion have already been announced.

The initiative is expected to funnel investments worth up to $502 billion into 62 host countries over the next five years. Analysts say most funds may flow into India, Russia, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, the Philippines and Pakistan.

The web of trade would span over countries representing more than 40 percent of the world’s GDP, that are home to 4.4 billion people -- more than half of the world’s population -- giving it a potential to affect global trade patterns. 

The biggest beneficiaries of the plan could be midsize domestic construction and machinery companies and Asian infrastructure firms, with China likely to give certain countries preferential treatment, according to Bloomberg.

However, a crucial mechanism that Beijing is considering for the success of the Belt and Road Initiative is using local currencies instead of dollars, which has sent shockwaves across the West.

Western governments and media have gone into great lengths to project the initiative as part of China's grand scheme for influence in Asia.

Reuters quoted a Chinese expert as saying that politics was being put ahead of economic factors.

"I believe that the national strategy is the top priority; economic considerations are secondary," it quoted the unnamed economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a Beijing-based think-tank, as saying.

The Silk Road is an ancient network of trade routes dating back to 220 BCE, connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea. 

China's state-run Xinhua news agency said the new Silk Road would be a boon for developing countries that had been largely neglected by the West.

"As some Western countries move backwards by erecting 'walls,' China is contriving to build bridges, both literal and metaphorical. These bridges are China's important offering to the world, and a key route to improving global governance," it said in an English-language commentary on Saturday.

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/14/c_136281648.htm.......

China Focus: Xi highlights peace, prosperity, opening up of Belt and Road

Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-14 11:58:50|Editor: ZD

 

 

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) for International Cooperation in Beijing, capital of China, May 14, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ye)

BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Sunday the Belt and Road should be built into a road of peace, prosperity, opening up, innovation and connecting different civilizations.

He proposed the five guiding principles for the pursuit of the Belt and Road initiative while delivering a keynote speech at the opening of the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing.

"The ancient silk routes thrived in times of peace, but lost vigor in times of war. The pursuit of the Belt and Road Initiative requires a peaceful and stable environment," said Xi.

"We should foster a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation; and we should forge partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation and of friendship rather than alliance," he said.

He called for fostering the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and creating a security environment built and shared by all.

The president urged the Belt and Road to be built into a road of prosperity.

"In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we should focus on the fundamental issue of development, release the growth potential of various countries and achieve economic integration and interconnected development and deliver benefits to all," he said.

Stressing infrastructure connectivity, Xi called for promoting land, maritime, air and cyberspace connectivity, focusing on key passageways, cities and projects, and connecting networks of highways, railways and sea ports.

He called for joint efforts to improve trans-regional logistics network and promote connectivity of policies, rules and standards so as to provide institutional safeguards for enhancing connectivity.

"We should build an open platform of cooperation and uphold and grow an open world economy," Xi said.

"We should jointly create an environment that will facilitate opening up and development, establish a fair, equitable and transparent system of international trade and investment rules and boost the orderly flow of production factors, efficient resources allocation and full market integration," he continued.

China welcomes the efforts made by other countries to grow open economies, participate in global governance and provide public goods, he said.

"Together we can build a broad community of shared interests," he said.

Xi also underlined the role of innovation in pursuing the initiative.

"We should pursue innovation-driven development and intensify cooperation in frontier areas such as digital economy, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and quantum computing, and advance the development of big data, clout computing and smart cities so as to turn them into a digital silk road of the 21st century."

Xi urged efforts to strengthen cooperation in ecological and environmental protection and build a sound ecosystem so as to realize the goals set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

"We should ensure that when it comes to different civilizations, exchange will replace estrangement, mutual learning will replace clashes, and coexistence will replace a sense of superiority," he said.

Xi called for establishing a multi-tiered mechanism for cultural and people-to-people exchanges, building more cooperation platforms and opening more cooperation channels.

The forum, the highest-level international meeting since Xi proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, gathers 29 foreign heads of state and government leaders as well as delegates from some 130 countrieselt 

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http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-05/14/c_136281713.htm.............

Interview: China's Belt & Road Initiative "most impressive development project of the century": UN body chief

Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-14 12:34:03|Editor: An

 

 

 

VIENNA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative is the most impressive development project of the century, creating significant potential for joint cooperation between China and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the UNIDO chief said.

The initiative "aims to build communities of political mutual trust, economic integration and cross-cultural learning through peaceful and active development and collaborative economic partnerships along the Belt and Road," Li Yong, UNIDO's director general told Xinhua in a recent interview.

The initiative reflects the pillars of inclusive and sustainable development and plays an important role in promoting the construction of infrastructure, Li said.

Proposed by China in 2013, the initiative aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes.

"This is precisely UNIDO's mandate and at the heart of SDG 9," said Li, adding "there exists significant potential and a bright future for joint cooperation."

In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, whose Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG 9) was designed to "build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation."

Established in 1966, the UNIDO has become a specialized UN agency mandated to promote industrial development in developing countries.

Li said UNIDO has engaged in cooperation with China in many fields with regard to the Belt and Road Initiative, and has launched, held and participated in various global forums.

He said UNIDO, together with the Ministry of Commerce of China, collaboratively drew up the "2016-2020 Country Programme Action Plan," whose main contents include green industrial development and food safety.

Li said the Belt and Road Initiative has been proposed as a vehicle for promoting industrialization in developing and least developed countries through international industrial capacity cooperation.

"UNIDO's cooperation with other Chinese governmental institutions and large enterprises has in recent years addressed climate change, energy efficiency and green finance, particularly in regard to the development of Small and Medium Enterprises in developing countries," Li told Xinhua.

Li also praised the Belt and Road Initiative for its two key features -- solving the problem of financing infrastructure and reflecting the spirit of inclusive and sustainable development.

By promoting total-factor productivity, endogenous economic growth and infrastructure construction, it can raise per capita income, improve the living quality of the entire society and reduce poverty effectively, as well as create opportunities for education and healthcare and provide work for the indigent, he said.

Infrastructure construction requires substantial capital investment. With the cooperation of the Asian Investment Bank, Silk Road Fund and BRICS Development Bank, the Belt and Road Initiative has a significant advantage when it comes to networking and financing, said Li.

This can help countries along the Belt and Road to construct infrastructure via effective financing and the utilization of government and private-sector resources, he noted.

Li also stressed the necessity to "enhance cooperation between countries and regions with different levels of development and different cultural backgrounds and to seek to forge wide-ranging partnerships."