BRI powering development across the world

Diversified energy market beneficial for all

Qatar is the world's top liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter. However, the competition for LNG has intensified since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, because countries, especially major powers, need huge volumes of LNG from other sources to make up for the shortage created in reduced Russian LNG supply. China is one of the powers that is keen to diversify its sources of energy.

For this reason, China is keen to strengthen relations with countries in the Middle East, Qatar in particular. In fact, on June 20 this year, Qatar and China signed a 27-year agreement under which Qatar will supply China with 4 million tons of LNG annually. This follows a similar 27-year agreement that Qatar Energy and China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation signed in November 2022. With this deal, Qatar replaced Australia as China's largest LNG supplier.

Qatar is aware that China, as a reliable long-term importer of energy, is growing as a consistent consumer of Gulf countries' energy. This is mirrored in the trade relations between Qatar and China — China has been Qatar's top trading partner since 2021. China-Qatar trade last year reached about $25 billion, of which Qatari exports to China were worth $20 billion. I believe China, with its huge market, will become the preferred destination for many Middle East countries' energy exports.

Kheir Diabat is a professor in the Foreign Affairs Department of Qatar University.

BRI, RCEP to help Cambodia realize its development goals

Over the past decade, more than 150 countries and 30 international organizations have joined the Belt and Road Initiative, which has achieved remarkable success since its launch in 2013.

The initiative provides a non-discriminatory and inclusive platform for cooperation, and has helped further increase ASEAN-China trade. China is now the largest trade partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with the China-ASEAN trade volume reaching 2.59 trillion yuan ($356.15 billion) in the first five months of 2023.

Cambodia is one of the staunchest supporters of the Belt and Road Initiative, because it has reaped tremendous benefits from Belt and Road infrastructure projects, including the construction of the Siem Reap International Airport and the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, the country's first expressway, which was completed in October last year.

By the end of 2017, more than 2,000 kilometers of roads, seven long bridges and a new container terminal at Phnom Penh Autonomous Port had been built with support from China. At present, Cambodia's second expressway, the 135-km-long expressway to Bavet City, is being built by China Bridge and Road Corp. for a cost of $1.35 billion.

The initiative provides an excellent opportunity for Cambodia and China to raise their relations to a new level, not least because the two countries' economies complement each other, and their political relations are strong and stable.

The Belt and Road Initiative, along with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Cambodia-China Free Trade Agreement, will help Cambodia achieve its development goals.

Kin Phea is director-general of the International Relations Institute of Cambodia, Royal Academy of Cambodia.

Initiative strengthens China-Chile ties

There are many "firsts" in China-Chile relations. Chile was the first South American country to establish diplomatic relations and the first to sign a free trade agreement with China, as well as the first to recognize China as a market economy. It was also in Chile, in January 2018, that all the member states of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, issued with China a joint statement underlining the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Of the five pillars of the memorandum of understanding signed by Chile and China on the Belt and Road Initiative, Chile has already reaped rich dividends from bilateral trade. With China being the largest trading partner of Chile, the two sides have made important advances in investment, and in July 2021, the Chilean Financial Market Commission approved the opening of a representative office of the Export-Import Bank of China.

Two years earlier, China Construction Bank and Bank of China opened their offices in Chile. Tianqi Lithium has the highest stakes among all Chinese companies in Chile's mining sector. In 2018, Tianqi acquired 24 percent of SQM for $4.1 billion, a key entity in lithium production, and Chile put into service the largest fleet of electric buses, including double-decker buses, a major change in the country's urban transportation system, outside of China.

And while former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet attended the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing in 2017, previous Chilean president Sebastian Piñera, participated in the second Belt and Road forum in 2019 — a practice incumbent President Gabriel Boric will continue at the third forum to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Furthermore, at the third seminar on Chile's "Future Foreign Policy Cycle" in July 2021, China and its global economic integration project were among the main topics of discussion. Today, with an eye to 2030 — to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals — Chile and China find in the Belt and Road Initiative a plethora of possibilities for boosting cooperation and contributing to global economic recovery and improving global governance.

Fernando Reyes Matta is a former ambassador of Chile to China, and the director of the Center for Latin-American Studies on China, Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile.

Transport powering China-Africa cooperation

Since 2016, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation Nigeria Limited has completed five railway projects in Nigeria. The last one, Lagos Metro Blue Railway Line, was inaugurated in Lagos on Sept 4.

The 12-km-long Lagos Metro is the second subway in operation. It comprises the first phase of the 37-km-long railway in Nigeria.

The others are the 157-km-long Lagos-Ibadan railway which has an additional 7-km-long arm, the 42-km-long Abuja metro railway, the 186-km-long Abuja-Kaduna railway, and the 368-km-long Ajaokuta-Itakpe-Warri railway. These projects have contributed immensely to the revival of the moribund railway system in Nigeria.

In 2019, immediately after the pandemic broke out, the Nigerian Ministry of Transportation said the China-built railways had contributed greatly to improving transportation and making traveling less stressful.

While covering the major Belt and Road projects and interviewing many people, I found that most of the passengers had never traveled by train in Nigeria before. Almost all the passengers said the coaches were comfortable and railway services efficient.

Since 2019, the CCECC has completed and handed over many projects to the Nigerian authorities for operation. And while the international airports in Abuja have been renovated or upgraded, new terminals have been built in Kano, Port Harcourt and Lagos. These four projects are masterpieces in architecture.

In December last year, as a seal of approval for its quality work and for completing all projects on time, the CCECC was awarded the contract to build the 37-km-long Lagos Fourth Mainland Bridge at a cost of $2.5 billion, with much of the funding coming from the Export-Import Bank of China.

In January, another Chinese company, China Harbor Engineering Company, completed the Lekki Deep Seaport in Lagos — the largest seaport in West Africa. All this shows the Belt and Road Initiative has made significant contributions to Nigeria's economic development.

Ikenna Emewu is editor-in-chief of Africa China Economy Magazine, Lagos Nigeria.

BRI creates global ripples on the development front

The Belt and Road Initiative promoted cooperation and development worldwide. Among the five major priorities of the initiative, infrastructure connectivity and people-to-people relations were the most successful in the past decade, even though policy coordination, unimpeded trade and financial integration fared well too.

Infrastructure discourse topped the Belt and Road agenda since massive infrastructure-related projects were completed in China and abroad linking almost two-thirds of the world population from Africa to Asia and elsewhere, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Despite some false narratives on China's "hidden agenda" and "debt trap", the initiative has brought millions of people together through new projects along the ancient Silk Road, helping narrow the yawning gaps among countries for lack of communication and connectivity.

The Belt and Road Initiative should offer two significant things in its second decade. The first is China's experience in eradicating poverty, and the second is its successful intervention in project development to the benefit of a large section of society.

However, different communities have different experiences about such interventions. So the initiative should develop a model for this. It should also build a permanent headquarters so that scholars, practitioners and beneficiaries, and representatives of states and organizations can assemble on a platform to delve into global issues.

Also, the Belt and Road Initiative brings more scholars from the Global South on board for research and development. Such activities will ensure sustainability and inclusiveness of the Belt and Road projects, while triggering further debates on the existing modalities of research, target groups and academic discourses in order to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

Mahendra Subedi is a Nepal-based journalist.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.