China: Silk Roads Forum closes with agreements worth US$97.2 billion

The III Forum of the New Silk Roads concluded today in Beijing with trade agreements worth US$97.2 billion (91.9 billion euros), 458 agreements and more than 100,000 training opportunities, announced the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.

Wang declared at a press conference that the forum was a “complete success” when approaching “all topics on the agenda”, which showed that the representatives of the 110 countries present “They didn’t come to talk for the sake of talking.”

Furthermore, the minister stated that China committed to building a “open global economy” and develop a “digital economy with a non-discriminatory environment.”

Wang emphasized during his appearance before the media in the “unity and cooperation” shown by the more than 10,000 participants in the forum, who are in the “right side of history”even though the world is in a time of “confrontation and Cold War mentality.”

That is why the Chinese minister stressed that the New Silk Roads initiative does not seek to confront other infrastructure projects, such as those of the European Union or the United States, but rather they want “compete without denying the other and without politicizing.”

“Maybe we can have a global competition on who can build the most roads, railways and bridges for developing countries (…) we are confident that we are capable of doing it”Wang noted.

According to the chancellor, infrastructures are a “urgent need” so that developing countries can achieve their “economic growth”.

The New Silk Roads, which are celebrating ten years since their implementation, are the star project of the president of China, Xi Jinping, with which the Asian giant seeks to seduce what it calls the Global South, with multi-million dollar investment projects that, without However, they have also received criticism for the risk of debt.

China holds forum without comment on Middle East and Ukraine

China today presented its plan to renew the New Silk Roads, which celebrated its tenth anniversary with a third forum in which any explicit mention of the Middle East crisis or the war in Ukraine was avoided.

The hot conflicts hovered over the event like an elephant in the room, but China only wanted to talk about its flagship investment project and its president, Xi Jinping, outlined a ‘Roadmap’ to provide the routes with a new stage of “high quality”.

The event was marked by the turbulent international situation, aggravated by the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, which was only referred to in his speech by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in a region “On the edge of the precipice”.

And in those, the long-awaited bilateral meeting between Xi and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who agreed on strategies and privately addressed the situation in the Middle East, without offering details.