One belt, road, to connect them all

China’s ambitious project to transform trade through better infrastructure is unlikely to be linked to major projects here, the NZ China council predicts.

Central to China’s bid for a growing role in global affairs, the one belt, one road initiative is a plan to boost trade connections across Eurasia, and is likely to include a massive programme of infrastructure building.

The initiative was raised during Prime Minister Bill English’s meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday, with the announcement of a framework ‘‘aimed at closer co-operation on regional infrastructure projects’’.

In 2015 New Zealand became a founding member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, investing $125 million in capital.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters warned that initiative could cede control of key assets to the Chinese, with cheap loans used to boost influence. ’’Offers of soft loans for development is simply not in our interests,’’ Peters said.

But Stephen Jacobi, executive director of the NZ China council, said in New Zealand the one belt, one road initiative was likely to focus on ‘‘software’’ such as trade regulation and facilitation, rather than ‘‘hardware’’ such as improved roads or airports.

Jacobi, who will attend a forum on the initiative in Beijing in May, said the infrastructure programme of the initiative was more likely to focus on remote parts of China or countries it borders with, such as Kazakhstan.

‘‘All sorts of things can be packaged up into these things, but the Chinese, I don’t think, are going to come out to New Zealand and offer concessionary finance to build our roads and airports, put it that way,’’ Jacobi said.

‘‘It’s not just about building roads and bridged and airports. It’s about that in some places, but it’s not so much about that in the sorts of things we’re looking at.’’