China's President says Belt and Road must be green, sustainable

China
# 26 April 2019 10:41 (UTC +04:00)

China’s Belt and Road initiative must be green and sustainable, President Xi Jinping said at the opening of a summit on his grand plan on Friday, adding that the massive infrastructure and trade plan should result in “high-quality” growth for everyone, ONA reports citing Reuters.

Xi said in a keynote speech that environmental protection must underpin the scheme “to protect the common home we live in”.

“We must adhere to the concept of openness, greenness, and cleanliness,” he said.

“Operate in the sun and fight corruption together with zero tolerance,” Xi added.

“Building high-quality, sustainable, risk-resistant, reasonably priced, and inclusive infrastructure will help countries to fully utilize their resource endowments.”

Unlike the first summit in 2017, where Xi said Chinese banks will lend 380 billion yuan ($56.43 billion) to support Belt and Road cooperation, he did not give a figure for new financing support. However, Xi will give another speech on Saturday.

The Belt and Road initiative will also open up development opportunities for China just as China itself is further opening up its markets to the world, Xi said.

“In accordance with the need for further opening up, (we’ll) improve laws and regulations, regulate government behavior at all levels in administrative licensing, market supervision and other areas, and clean up and abolish unreasonable regulations, subsidies and practices that impede fair competition and distort the market,” he said.

Xi promised to significantly shorten the negative list for foreign investments, and allow foreign companies to take a majority stake or set up wholly-owned companies in more sectors.

Tariffs will be lower and non-tariff barriers will be eliminated, Xi added.

“China will strengthen macroeconomic policy coordination with major economies in the world and strive to create positive spillover effects to promote a strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth for the world economy,” said Xi.

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