China policy bank provides financing worth $190b for B&R projects

BOAO - China Development Bank (CDB), a major policy bank, has financed more than 600 Belt and Road projects totaling $190 billion since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed in 2013, said CDB president Zheng Zhijie Wednesday.

The bank's outstanding loans for international projects to B&R countries hit $105.9 billion by the end of last year, accounting for 34 percent of its total outstanding loans for international projects, Zheng said at a panel discussion of the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia annual conference.

In May 2017, the CDB set up a three-year special lending program worth 250 billion yuan ($37.23 billion) to support B&R cooperation on infrastructure, industrial capacity and financing. By the end of February this year, lending via the special loan reached 480.7 billion yuan, of which 139 billion yuan was for infrastructure construction, Zheng said.

"This has provided sustainable and risk-controlled financial support for the construction of the Belt and Road in the long-term," Zheng said.

Zheng also said the financing for B&R infrastructure construction should be promoted. "We need to build a more open and inclusive financing platform and give full play to all sorts of capital, whether it's State-owned, private, or foreign," he said.

The BFA annual conference runs from March 26 to 29 in Boao, a coastal town in China's southern island province of Hainan.