BRI 'fruitful', but debt risk an issue

Belt and Road links 100 nations; risk research will be enhanced

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) presents great development potential to the countries involved, but more attention must be paid to debt sustainability and other risks, according to officials and experts.

The BRI, launched five years ago, now involves more than 100 countries and international organizations in building connectivity among countries, many of which are emerging and developing nations.

Zheng Zhijie, president of China Development Bank, described the BRI on Wednesday as "fruitful" in the past five years.

From 2014 to 2017, China's trade with countries along the BRI exceeded $4 trillion. The 75 BRI projects in the relevant countries had total investment of $60 billion. A number of infrastructure projects in railways, highways and ports have been completed; manufacturing projects have been started; and energy projects are forging ahead, according to Zheng.

"The BRI construction has injected steady momentum into countries along the route and helped improve the livelihood of their peoples," Zheng said at a conference on the Chinese economy and the BRI at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The China Development Bank is a major player in the BRI. By the end of 2017, it had financed 600 projects along the BRI route, with accumulated lending exceeding $180 billion.

Zheng noted that many countries in the BRI are emerging and developing nations that have limited financial capacities, low returns on investment and low risk-prevention capabilities. He said his bank will improve the risk research of countries along the route, continually update risk reports of individual countries and strengthen early warnings in order to provide long-term, stable and sustainable financing to the BRI-related projects.

Zhou Yanli, vice-chairman of the International Finance Forum, a Beijing-based non-governmental organization, said "China's signature BRI offers a 'once-in-a-generation' opportunity to raise economic prosperity of billions of people".

A survey by the IFF and Central Banking Publications, released on Wednesday as part of the IFF China Report 2018, showed that most respondents in Europe, Middle East, Asia and Oceania expect the BRI to bolster their countries' growth.

Some 44 percent described the BRI as "a once-in-a-generation opportunity" for their countries, and another 19 percent said it's "one of the most important initiatives of the past decade".

"China aims to make the BRI the broadest platform for international cooperation in keeping with the trend of economic globalization and to the greater benefit of all our peoples," Zhou said.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is a good opportunity for IMF to collaborate with Chinese authorities to make it successful to the benefit of China as well as the global world," said Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, adding that the BRI can have many benefits and at the same time involve many risks.

Rhee cited software issues, such as in public finance management, as areas where the IMF can contribute.

In Beijing last week, the IMF and China launched a China-IMF Capwwacity Development that will provide training courses for BRI economies.

Markus Rodlauer, deputy director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, pointed out that some BRI partner countries have breached IMF's critical debt-sustainability indicators. "So it is a key risk, both for China and the partner countries," he said.

"Certainly it is not a reason for not (having) a BRI, or even for no BRI engagement in those countries already at risk of debt sustainability," he said.

Rodlauer said it is important to pay attention to project-selection, financing, implementation and monitoring.

Maggie Chen, professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University, noted that Western countries are "hesitant and averse" in investing in many of the developing countries along the BRI route.

Besides project-selection and implementation, she believes attention should be paid to the business and legal environments in the host countries.

Chen said the BRI has great potential to improve connectivity and facilitate growth.

"And there is great potential for these investments to help BRI countries get integrated into the global value chains," she said.