China boosted trades with and investments in the countries covered by its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2018 amid a trade war between China and the US, according to the Chinese government.
The world’s second largest economy saw the total value of its trades with BRI countries increase to CNY 8.37trn ($1.24trn) last year, up 13.3% from the 2017 level, customs data showed.
The growth was led by a 24% rise in China-Russia trade, a 23.2% increase in China-Saudi Arabia trade, and a 33% hike in China-Greece trade.
Overall, China’s international trade reached another all-time high of CNY 30.51trillion in 2018 despite a slowdown towards year-end. That was up 9.7% on year.
Figures from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce showed China’s non-financial outbound direct investments (ODI) in the BRI countries reached $15.64bn last year, representing a year-on-year gain of 8.9%.
China’s total ODI amounted to $129.83bn in 2018, up 4.2% from 2017.
According to state-run Xinhua news agency, government officials hope to innovate China’s ways of foreign investments based on the BRI as a growth driver, with more scrutiny in developed countries over Chinese investments due to what they call rising protectionism.
A flagship project of Chinese president Xi Jinping, the BRI has a stated goal of promoting logistics links between Asia, Middle East, Africa and Europe.
China officially include approximately 60 emerging economies in those continents on the BRI, though on some occasions government agencies also refer to Chinese investments in western Europe and emerging economies in the Americas as BRI projects.
Critics have warned that the BRI countries could fall into debt traps if they don’t carefully assess the financial plausibility of Chinese-led infrastructure projects, as shown by recent examples in Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
