BRI bears rich fruits in economic, trade cooperation over past decade

International cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has gone deeper and more practical, and borne rich fruits over the past 10 years since the initiative was proposed.

As of mid-February this year, China had signed more than 200 BRI cooperation documents with 151 countries and 32 international organizations.

This aerial photo taken on Nov 23, 2022 shows a Fuxing bullet train running on the Yuanjiang bridge of the China-Laos Railway in southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo/Xinhua)

Cooperation in trade and investment is an important part of BRI cooperation. From 2013 to 2022, the annual volume of trade in goods between China and countries along the routes of the BRI grew from $1.04 trillion to $2.07 trillion.

In particular, customs data showed that trade volume between China and countries along the BRI routes hit a record high in 2022 and accounted for 32.9 percent of the total of China's foreign trade. The figure was 3.2 percentage points higher than that of the previous year and 7.9 percentage points higher compared to 2013 when the BRI was first proposed.

Meanwhile, two-way investment between China and countries along the BRI routes has scaled new heights and covered many industries over the past decade.

By the end of 2022, Chinese enterprises had invested a cumulative total of $57.13 billion and created 421,000 local jobs in overseas economic and trade cooperation zones built in countries along the routes of the BRI.

Infrastructure connectivity among BRI countries has also been continuously deepened since the initiative was proposed.

China-Europe freight trains have opened a new land transport corridor between Asia and Europe and provided a strong underpinning for the stability and smooth functioning of global supply and industrial chains.

During the first two months of this year, China-Europe freight trains made a total of 2,698 trips and transported 287,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers, with the figures rising 8 percent and 18 percent, respectively, compared to the same period last year.

Over the past 10 years, a good number of major cooperation projects under the framework of the BRI have been implemented and brought tangible benefits to people in countries along the BRI routes.

Such projects include major ones like the China-Laos Railway and the Belgrade-Budapest railway, as well as "small and beautiful" projects in such fields as agriculture, health, and poverty reduction.