Cao Desheng

countries blaming China for creating “debt traps” in other countries by promoting the initiative.

Foreign Minister Wang rejected the accusations at Friday’s news conference, and listed BRI projects that have brought win-win outcomes for the countries involved.

Thanks to the BRI, East Africa now has its first motorway, and the Maldives has built its first interisland bridge, Belarus is able to produce passenger vehicles, Kazakhstan is connected to the sea, a highspeed railway is being constructed in Southeast Asia, and the Eurasian continent is benefiting from the longest-distance freight train service, he said.

The Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, built with Chinese assistance and dubbed “a project of the century”, has created nearly 50,000 jobs for locals and boosted Kenya’s economic growth by 1.5 percentage points, he added.

In Uzbekistan, Chinese construction workers and local people built a 19-kilometer railway tunnel through high mountains in just 900 days, Wang said.

“Plenty of facts have proved that the BRI is not a ‘debt trap’ that countries may fall into, but an ‘economic pie’ that benefits locals. It’s no ‘geopolitical tool’, but a great opportunity for shared development,” Wang told reporters.

Belt and Road construction has accelerated the development of participating countries, improved the livelihoods of their peoples and opened up the prospect of mutual benefits and win-win cooperation, he added.

The Foreign Ministry has said on a number of occasions at its regular new conferences that developing countries have debts for historical reasons, and Chinese investment in these countries only accounts for a small proportion of the money owed.

The ministry said decisions on BRI cooperation are made jointly by all participating parties, whether it is project selection or investment and financial cooperation.