Beijing will inject more than $100 billion in new funding into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), President Xi Jinping said Wednesday at a summit marking the tenth anniversary of the massive infrastructure project.
“The China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China — the BRI’s two main lenders — will each provide 350 billion yuan ($50 billion) in funding. The Silk Road Fund, the project’s official lending institution, will also get a capital injection of 80 billion yuan ($11 billion),” Xi said.
BRI supporters praise these efforts for bringing resources and economic growth to countries with relatively low industrial development.
But this initiative has also been criticized for burdening poor countries with huge debts.
The BRI is a key pillar of Xi’s efforts to expand China’s influence abroad, and Beijing says it has now signed contracts worth more than two trillion dollars worldwide.
This week’s forum, attended by representatives from 130 countries, was the third major summit hosted by Beijing since the launch of the BRI in 2013.
Critics have long questioned opaque pricing for BRI projects built by Chinese companies, with countries including Malaysia and Myanmar renegotiating deals to lower costs.
Beijing has been forced to provide billions of dollars in bailout loans to BRI countries in recent years so that countries can extend their loans and remain solvent, according to a joint report this year by the World Bank and other institutions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend a meeting on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Forum, in Beijing, China, October 18, 2023. (Photo: Sputnik/Sergei Guneev/Pool via REUTERS)
China said this month that BRI participants owed more than $300 billion to the Export-Import Bank of China.
The initiative has also come under scrutiny for its huge carbon footprint and environmental degradation caused by massive infrastructure projects.
The construction of giant ports, pipelines, railways and highways could make the Paris climate goals unattainable, researchers from China, the United States and Britain warned in 2019. (ab/uh)