On the Regular Press Conference on October 13, 2023, journalist from China Daily asked, "on October 10, the first section of the Padma Bridge Rail Link Project, a flagship Belt and Road project in Bangladesh, was officially launched. This is yet another important outcome of the 'hardware connectivity' under Belt and Road cooperation. What is your comment on this?"

Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry answered as follows: 

Infrastructure connectivity is a priority area of Belt and Road cooperation. The Padma Bridge Rail Link Project in Bangladesh is one of its signature projects. The official launch of its first section is a dream-come-true moment for Bangladeshi people who hoped one day they could ride a train across the Padma River. The launch of the section is expected to directly benefit 80 million people and drive up Bangladesh’s economic growth by 1.5 percentage points.

Over the past decade, under the BRI connectivity framework comprising “six corridors, six routes, and multiple countries and ports”, a four-dimensional network of land, sea, air and cyber connectivity has taken shape. Infrastructure projects have helped participating countries realize their dream for shared prosperity. East Africa now has its first trans-boundary electrified rail—the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway; the Budapest-Belgrade Railway has slashed travel time between Hungary and Serbia; the China-Laos Railway turned land-locked Laos into a land-linked country, which added over 100,000 jobs indirectly for the country and could raise Laos’ aggregate income by 21 percent; the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway is the fastest in Southeast Asia and has created 51,000 local jobs; and the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway accounts for 2 percent of Kenya’s economic growth.

Over the past decade, BRI infrastructure cooperation has served as a new platform for international trade and investment and injected fresh impetus into the global economy. A World Bank report shows that thanks to BRI infrastructure projects, trade costs for the world would decline by 1.8 percent, trade is estimated to grow by between 2.8 and 9.7 percent for corridor economies and between 1.7 and 6.2 percent for the world, and global real income is expected to increase by 0.7 to 2.9 percent. Data from remote sensing satellites show that more and more places along the six economic corridors are lit up at night over the past decade. Along the China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridor, nighttime light grew by 5.57 percent, far exceeding the global average increase of 1.3 percent. 

The BRI is proposed by China for the benefit of the whole world. Hailed as a “road to happiness” and a “belt of development”, the BRI brings smile and hope to people around the globe as the number of partners grows. For countless people, connectivity has brought them life-changing benefits and a future full of hope. As the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation approaches, we look forward to taking this opportunity to take stock of the fruitful decade-long BRI cooperation and chart the course for the next decade of high-quality cooperation together with the participants.