Belt and Road Initiative provides 'a great vision' to boost global growth: business leaders

WASHINGTON - Belt and Road Initiative is "a great vision" from China, that will help boost global economy growth, two business leaders said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"I very much see it (Belt and Road Initiative) as a great vision from China's leadership," said Tom Pellette, group president of Construction Industries at Caterpillar, a US manufacturer of construction and mining equipment based in Illinois.

Pellette said global economic growth has been very slow since 2012 as governments have put back incentives to counter financial crisis broke out in 2008.

China proposed the initiative in 2013 which is "very visionary" and will put together "not just Chinese investments but global investments into projects in dozens of countries," said Pellette.

"I think it would be a big benefit for all the countries along the route, all the countries involved, including the US," said Pellette.

"The more we are interconnected by common projects, common trade and common interests the more stable and peaceful the world will be and everybody will benefit economically by that cooperation," said Pellette.

"These are opportunities for global companies no matter how big and how small," Pellette added.

The initiative has become a "real" and "crucial" strength for the development of the countries covered by the initiative, according to a research of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) released here on Monday.

Since 2014, EBRD and other countries have enlarged their investments in that region as more than 300 greenfield investments with combined value of $75.9 billion have been announced by Chinese investors, creating "a platform for building more competitive industries" as investments have gone beyond infrastructure to energy, e-commerce and telecom connectivity.

As a senior manager of a company with about 50-year global operating experience, Pellette said "the belt and road countries do not present larger risks than other parts of the world" and Caterpillar has already participated in hundreds of projects in Asia and Africa under this initiative with its Chinese partners.

"We expect the list of projects to go from hundreds to thousands of course," said Pellette. "I guess it would be thirty, forty years the Belt and Road Initiative continues, maybe longer."

Caterpillar entered Chinese market in 1975 and has become a significant player in China's construction and mining equipment market. Belt and Road Initiative has provided "a real good opportunity" for Caterpillar to share its global experience to those large Chinese contractors who plan to do business outside China, Qihua Chen, chairman of Caterpillar China, told Xinhua.

"We have got a lot of overseas business models and we have a network of 175 dealers around the world," said Chen.

Chen said Caterpillar is very willing to share experience with Chinese contractors on dealing financial risks as well as improving project and asset management on foreign markets.