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Foreign delegates discuss benefits of Belt and Road Initiative

By Wang Qingyun and Zhang Xiang (chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2015-10-17 11:51:06

China's Belt and Road Initiative can change the destiny of Asia, said a Pakistani delegate at the three-day Asian Political Parties' Special Conference on the Silk Road, which concluded in Beijing on Friday.

"We are already integrated with the Belt and Road Initiative through various projects, and these projects are in all parts and provinces of Pakistan," Mushahid Hussain Sayed, secretary general of Pakistan Muslim League, also chairman of Pakistan's Parliamentary Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, said on Friday.

He cited the construction of the Gwadar Port, where the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road converge, as an example, as well as the fact that the first project China's Silk Road Fund is going to invest is in Pakistan.

"It (the Belt and Road Initiative) is a game changer, which can change the destiny of Asia, because we are reviving the ancient Silk Road, which started from China and connected China with the rest of Asia, Middle East and Europe through trade and culture," he said.

Davit Usupashvili, speaker of Georgia's Parliament, said on Friday that Georgia being "the center of the Eurasian continent" offers opportunities for infrastructure projects "like railway connection, which will make the movement of cargo much cheaper, much faster and much easier from China to Europe and vice versa."

"Georgia is ready to offer everything we possess for success of this project (the Belt and Road Initiative)," he said.

Nikolay V Levichev, vice-chairman of the State Dum of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, said on Wednesday that Russia and China have set up expert panels to study investment projects that both countries are interested in, in order to implement the joint statement Russian President Vladimir Putin signed with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping in May to connect the Silk and Road Initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union.

Farkhad Shaimuratovich Kuanganov, secretary of the Nur Otan Party of Kazakhstan, said Kazakhstan is working to dovetail the Belt and Road Initiative with its "Path of Light" project, a project to develop its infrastructure, as well as with the Eurasian Economic Union.

During Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Masimov's visit to China in March, the two countries signed 33 deals worth $23.6 billion.

China is Kazakhstan's biggest trading partner, and both countries have vowed to promote bilateral trade, aiming for a record high of $40 billion by the end of the year.

The Belt and Road Initiative "covers more countries in the Eurasia" than the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement does, said Kuanganov.

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