- The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) will be held in Beijing in October.
- China said that 90 countries have confirmed attendance for it.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin also has a scheduled visit to China in October when the country hosts the One Belt One Road forum.
- China’s foreign ministry said the country has signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations.
- “Over the past decade, Belt and Road cooperation has achieved fruitful outcomes,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told in a press conference.
- Critics see the ambitious Belt and Road initiative – billed as recreating the ancient Silk Road to boost global trade infrastructure.
The third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) will be held in Beijing in October, the foreign ministry has previously said, with 2023 marking the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China said that 90 countries have confirmed attendance for its Belt and Road Initiative conference being held in October.
Several foreign leaders are expected to attend, including Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, state media reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin also has a scheduled visit to China in October when the country hosts the One Belt One Road forum, Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said recently.
China’s foreign ministry said the country has signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations, according to Xinhua.
“Over the past decade, Belt and Road cooperation has achieved fruitful outcomes,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin recently said at a press conference, adding that it has established more than 3,000 cooperation projects and galvanized nearly $1 trillion of investment, state media reported.
Critics see the ambitious Belt and Road initiative – billed as recreating the ancient Silk Road to boost global trade infrastructure – as a tool for President Xi Jinping’s China to spread its geopolitical and economic influence.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development strategy aims to build connectivity and cooperation across six main economic corridors encompassing China and Mongolia and Russia; Eurasian countries; Central and West Asia; Pakistan; other countries of the Indian sub-continent; and Indochina.
Since 2013, the Chinese leadership has successfully made a splash on the world stage by selling the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as the “project of the century.” More than 150 countries joined the BRI, with hundreds of agreements signed.
Numerous studies conducted by the World Bank have estimated that BRI can boost trade flows in 155 participating countries by 4.1 percent, as well as cutting the cost of global trade by 1.1 percent to 2.2 percent, and grow the GDP of East Asian and Pacific developing countries by an average of 2.6 to 3.9 percent.
(With inputs from agencies)
