JakartaPost-Oct 18, 2023
Belt and Road cooperation must not complicate the fiscal conditions of the countries involved, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said in his address at the Belt and Road Forum on Wednesday. Belt and Road cooperation must not be politicized, and it requires collective efforts to maintain its core values, he said. On Wednesday, President Xi Jinping said that Beijing will inject over $100 billion of new funding into its Belt and Road initiative. The Belt and Road is a central pillar of Xi’s bid to expand China’s clout overseas, with Beijing saying it has now inked over two trillion dollars in contracts around the world. Proponents hail it for bringing resources and economic growth to the Global South. But the initiative has also been slammed for saddling poor countries with enormous debt. Xi announced on Wednesday that key Belt and Road lenders the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank will now offer an additional $100 billion in loans. Both will set up financing opportunities of 350 billion yuan ($47.9 billion) for BRI projects, he said. This week’s forum, attended by representatives of 130 countries, is the third major summit of its kind to be hosted by Beijing since the Belt and Road’s launch in 2013. Critics have long pointed to opaque pricing for BRI projects built by Chinese companies, with countries including Malaysia and Myanmar renegotiating deals to bring down costs. Beijing has been forced to hand out billions of dollars in bailout loans to BRI countries in recent years to allow the countries to extend their loans and remain solvent, according to a joint report this year by the World Bank and other institutions. Read more at:
