China, Belt and Road Countries Trade Volumes Amounted to $1.1tr

Last year, trade volume between China and countries along the Belt and Road amounted to $1.1 trillion, up 14.8 percent year-on-year, which is 3.4 percentage points higher than the growth of the country’s total foreign trade. Over the past five years, the initiative has been positively echoed by over 140 countries and regions, and fruitful cooperation achievements have been yielded under its framework. Praising a more diversified investment portfolio, China had altogether invested over $60 billion to on-route countries in various sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and infrastructure. A group of big projects were making steady progress as well, including the construction of railways, expressways and ports, cooperation programs on energy and resources and the operation of manufacturing projects. China has established 75 zones for economic and trade cooperation in countries along the routes, with a total investment of more than $27 billion.