Lifting global economic collaboration

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which concluded in Beijing on Monday, succeeded in dispelling the myth that China aspires to dominate the world, and forging more and stronger multilateral partnerships among economies to boost global growth.

This Belt and Road Initiative is the largest China-led initiative to improve infrastructure connectivity among economies, beginning with Eurasia and extending to Africa, for a more balanced and sustainable global development. Till four decades ago, China was a relatively poor country. To eradicate poverty, it launched the reform and opening-up, which greatly expedited the pace of its economic development. And the massive infrastructure-building program that China launched made it the world leader in infrastructure construction.

Now it's time for China to share its experience, expertise and resources with its neighbors and other countries, partly because of its own economic development needs. But the fact is, other countries need China's experience, expertise and resources to strengthen their infrastructure. The United States has not built an airport in almost two decades and the United Kingdom has not built a nuclear power plant in almost 30 years. In contrast, China has not only been continuously constructing such facilities over the past three decades and more, but also building high-speed railway for about 10 years and is home to some 60 percent of the world's high-speed railway network. Therefore, China enjoys an advantage over developed economies when it comes to costs and the use of technologies for building such infrastructure facilities.