Building a bridge to our common future

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing is a milestone in the development of China's Belt and Road Initiative, a historic effort to transform the economies along the two routes, strengthen links between them and better connect them to the rest of the world. The United Arab Emirates strongly supports the initiative, which will foster economic growth and security both regionally and globally.

Substantial progress has been made since President Xi Jinping announced the initiative in 2013. During this period, China has directly invested more than $50 billion and helped establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank - a new multilateral institution designed to finance vital public works in Asia's emerging economies. The UAE is a founding member of the AIIB and committed to its central mission of bringing the Belt and Road Initiative vision to life.

China's approach to economic development mirrors our own. We share the same core beliefs in the essential connection between trade, peace and prosperity. For both our peoples, these beliefs go beyond stated principles to concrete actions, best expressed by the strength of our bilateral trade, which has grown dramatically - almost 800 times, in the three decades since we established formal relations - from $63 million in 1984 to more than $50 billion in 2016.