Belt and Road Initiative Brings Chinese Infrastructure Know-how to Developing Countries: US Expert
The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is bringing the Asian country’s infrastructure capital and know-how to developing countries involved in its expansion, a renowned US scholar has said. “China has shown itself to be a vivid example of the benefits that can flow from the active hand of government in investment in infrastructural development,” Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, said in a recent interview.
“As the Belt and Road Initiative is extended and expanded overseas, it will afford a similar foundation on which developing countries can jump-start their own development on lines achieved by China over the past three decades,” he said. Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative, which refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road.
Development under the initiative’s transnational framework involves a variety of countries, and China has the finance, skills and experience to make infrastructure growth a reality, Mr Gupta said.
The key is early-stage investments in hard and soft infrastructure, he noted.
While trade liberalisation and market forces are important for resource allocation and growth, inclusive industrialisation-led development “cannot be left to market forces alone,” he said. “The active hand of government is required to overcome a host of deficiencies related to institutional shortcomings, rent-seeking, and a general lack of competition,” he said.
It is also important to ensure that the infrastructural investments under the banner of BRI are “well-designed and productivity-enhancing,” given that these investments have long gestation periods, and the financing that is provided needs to be paid off from the productive assets created, said the expert.