By Jiang Xiheng & Zhu Qingyi, China Center for International Knowledge on Development (CIKD)

Research Report, No.72, 2019 (Total 5572) 2019-5-16

Abstract: High-quality infrastructure construction has caught the eye of the world with the advance of the Belt and Road Initiative (Hereinafter referred to as the Initiative). In March 2019, the Department for International Development of the UK, the Wilton Policy Research Institute of the UK Foreign Ministry and the UK International Development Institute jointly held an international conference in the UK entitled “The Belt and Road Initiative: Sustainable Development Is Shored by High-Quality Infrastructure Construction”. Attending the conference were representatives from financial institutions, experts and scholars on international development, members from non-governmental organizations, business investors as well as representatives from the UK and from about ten countries along the Belt and Road routes. Members at the meeting held discussions on opportunities and risks facing the Initiative in promoting sustainable development. According to their views, the Initiative could and is able to promote sustainable development if the common interests of relevant sides are met. They maintain that the Initiative is facing multiple risks and related stakeholders need to make joint efforts to alleviate these risks. They hold that the Initiative needs a feasible principle focusing on both high standards and development interests and the constant advance of the Initiative needs to follow the principle of achieving shared growth through consultation and collaboration and the key leading to the fulfillment of the above-mentioned points lies in the enhancement of a transparent performance.

Key words: the Belt and Road Initiative, high quality, infrastructure