Belt and Road to unleash potential for infrastructure development in B&R countries: Experts

By Wu Xilu

"People sometimes just look at the Belt and Road Initiative as geopolitical thinking, but I see it as financial cooperation and huge progress also," said Shamshad Akhtar, former under secretary-general of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission of the Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP) during this year's Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in Hainan Province.

Delivering a speech at the session titled "A New Stage of Asia-Pacific Regional Cooperation", Shamshad Akhtar noted that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) will unleash new capital for countries "either suffer from low credit ratings or did not have the desire and ability to raise funding".

"All these RCEP and CPTPP will only be dreams without infrastructure connectivity," Shamshad Akhtar said, "I want to say that China needs to be complimented for its work on Belt and Road Initiative."

Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, also lauded the role that BRI projects play in infrastructure development.

"China's experience is correct in putting an emphasis on the need for quality infrastructure, transportation, power, fiber for digital connectivity," said Jeffrey D. Sachs at the session titled "Inclusive Development – Efficiency and Equity".

Jeffrey D. Sachs also expected broader and closer cooperation among China, the EU and the US in funding infrastructure in poor countries.

"This would be the best way to promote prosperity and global peace," he said.