UN official sees bright future in BRI connections

The Belt and Road Initiative will make an important contribution to removing the connectivity bottleneck problem between African countries, a senior United Nations official said, calling the matter "quite urgent".

Ahunna Eziakonwa, assistant secretary-general and director of the United Nations Development Programme's regional bureau for Africa, made the remark in an interview with China Daily on Sunday.

"The huge deficit in infrastructure makes trade in Africa at the moment totally suboptimal," Eziakonwa said, adding that she believes "African countries could trade more with each other if the infrastructure was right".