Xi's Belt and Road speech wins wide praise

By Zhong Nan, Ma Si, He Wei, Liu Jing, Chen Jie, Wang Yanfei, Jin Dan, Cui Jia, Xin Zhiming, Chen Yingqun and Zhan Qianhui | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-05-14 11:14

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Luigi Gambardella, president of ChinaEU, a non-profit organization in Brussels that promotes bilateral digital and internet cooperation. [Photo by Chen Yingqu/chinadaily.com.cn]

Luigi Gambardella, president of ChinaEU, a non-profit organization in Brussels that promotes bilateral digital and internet cooperation

What I admire about China's leadership is its capacity to not just talk about dreams, but to actually turn them into reality.

In his opening speech, President Xi described China's ambition and demonstrated its capacity to drive a gigantic development plan, which, first of all, is a new, brave and innovative idea. And innovation is at the core of the whole project, which will not only promote highways, railways and seaports, but also innovation-driven development.

The Belt and Road Initiative will become, among other things, a digital Silk Road where the most advanced IT infrastructure and digital tools (including big data, artificial intelligence and automation) will make it possible to achieve the full potential of connectivity, decrease the digital divide among the countries and regions related to the initiative and increase the efficiency of trade interactions.