IFNIA 2023 – The Belt and Road Initiative – Strengthening Connectivity for Common Development and Prosperity
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The International Forum on New Inclusive Asia (IFNIA) with the theme, “The Belt and Road Initiative – Strengthening Connectivity for Common Development and Prosperity”, is particularly designed to commemorate this anniversary.
Launched by China in 2013 based on the spirit and concept of the Ancient Silk Road, BRI is not just a transformative development project that aims to bolster infrastructure and digital connectivity, promote global trade and interconnected development, and foster people-to-people bond, it is also a 21st century development philosophy propagated by China as a rising economic power.
Described as “project of the century”, BRI is China’s offer of public good to the world. This mammoth transnational economic cooperation project has now more than 150 partner countries spreading across Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and supported by over 30 international organisations. Going forward, China is set to take major steps to bring Belt and Road cooperation to a new stage of high-quality development with the aim to build an open, inclusive, and interconnected world for common development and prosperity.
At the 76th UN General Assembly held in 2021, President Xi Jinping put forward the Global Development Initiative (GDI) with the goal to put “development high on the global macro policy agenda”, to support the timely achievement of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This initiative is no doubt in consonance with UN’s emphasis that “there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.”
IFNIA 2023 provides a timely platform for scholars, researchers, experts and policy makers from BRI participating countries and the West to share their views, insights and perspectives on the achievements and challenges of BRI and the way forward, as well as on how BRI and GDI could facilitate and assist developing countries in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
