Experts say energy and infrastructure will drive Silk Road policy

Energy cooperation and infrastructure construction will be new engines for cooperation among China and Eurasian countries, driven by China's Silk Road economic belt initiative, said experts.

President Xi Jinping last year proposed that China and Central Asia join to build a Silk Road economic belt. Some 4 billion people live along the path of the new trade route.

"I think it would be a win-win solution, China can diversify its energy supply channels while the economies of these countries can be boosted by new projects," said Zhao Hongtu, a research professor at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a government think tank.

Construction of infrastructure facilities such as pipelines, railways and highways will lay the foundations for broader economic cooperation, said Zhao.

As to the investment in such facilities, Zhao said all parties involved should work together to draw up a feasible plan.

Most of China's international energy cooperation involves bilateral relations, but this initiative will involve more multilateral relations.

"Bilateral relations are relatively simple but multilateral relations have more constraints" and there are more aspects to consider, said Zhao.

China should further strengthen strategic cooperation with countries surrounding the Caspian Sea and Russia by taking advantage of the strategic opportunities provided by the development of the Silk Road economic belt and the 21st century maritime Silk Road, to further improve China's position in the global energy market, said the 2014 annual development report on world energy, released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Monday in Beijing.

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