BRI: mutual path to global success.

Today the world is rife with daunting challenges involving economic sustainability, high-tech growth, trade, infrastructure, finance, global connectivity, people-to-people connections, climate, social order and most urgently, the COVID-19 pandemic. No one can neutralise these problems individually. All global players from big economies to small economies require the pooling and sharing of knowledge across institutions, across disciplines and across continents.

At this juncture, indeed BRI has emerged as the best model for unity to lay down a foundation of openness, connectivity and inclusive progress. The recently-held BRI international conference gave clear vision to the world as to why a united front on the world landscape matters a lot to achieve global success.

The Chinese President Xi Jingping, an architect of BRI, in a written message to the high-level BRI conference, threw all his weight behind the indispensability of BRI, terming it a model of cooperation, unity, health and growth.

The video conference is 'a highly important meeting that gives Belt and Road cooperation partners an opportunity to discuss a collective response to COVID-19, advance Belt and Road cooperation, and strengthen international solidarity and cooperation,' said Xi.

He said that the sudden attack of COVID-19 has posed a grave threat to the lives and health of people across the globe. It has dealt a heavy blow to the world economy, and caused tough economic and social challenges for some countries, developing ones in particular.

'To contain the virus, countries have taken robust and effective measures, specific to their national context. On top of that, many countries are striving to resume economic and social development,' Xi said, noting that in China's case, the people's lives and wellbeing have always been put front and centre.

According to international organisations, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development strategy is a dire need of the hour as it has capacity to fill massive development gaps.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organisation, has given full support to BRI due to its global appeal and mutual workability.

It says that world has a large infrastructure gap constraining trade, openness and future prosperity. Multilateral development banks (MDBs) are working hard to help close this gap. Most recently, China has commenced a major global effort to bolster this trend, a plan...