Your Excellency, President Xi Jinping, and on his behalf, I extend greetings to all the Heads of State and Government present here,
Heads of international organizations,
Ladies and gentlemen,
First of all I would like to greet Your Excellency and People Republic of China people for this accomplishment, the ten years of Belt and Road Initiative, and thank Your Excellency for the honorable invitation.
It is a great honor for me to speak at this Third Forum of the Belt and Road Initiative for International Cooperation. The international community is facing significant challenges. Overlapping crises are shaking the process of globalization.
The rules and practices of international trade and finance are being broken and fragmented. The use of sanctions as a weapon, technological embargoes, and the intensification of localized conflicts create obstacles to stability, peace, economic growth, and deepen social inequalities.
These crises represent significant risks to the prosperity of all peoples. When not adequately addressed, they exacerbate political polarization, and as a result, the global economy runs the risk of fragmenting, consumed by protectionism. And, as we know from history, economic protectionism serves only the hegemony of a few powerful players, relegating developing countries and emerging economies to the periphery of an unequal system that concentrates wealth and power.
Climate emergencies are worsening and affecting all continents with increasingly devastating effects. The Global South has made significant efforts to address this multitude of crises through cooperation and the construction of sustainable, inclusive, and resilient multilateralism.
The Belt and Road Initiative is conceived to address these challenges and transform them in an opportunity to put in place the biggest cooperation platform among countries.
The Initiative as the most huge platform, comprising many countries and has partners in other initiatives like the New Development Bank. Obviously each, one in their own dimension and according to their own scope, both are part of the effort to build a multilateral financial and cooperative world.
The NDB has been a partner to developing countries financing their development, logistical infrastructure, social projects focusing on inequalities, measures to address climate change, investing in clean energy, water and sanitation and preventing natural disasters.
The challenge for us is to secure the necessary volume of resources and for that the bank operates on two fronts: raising funds in different currencies and also in local currencies, operations and in the other front expanding his capital basis, incorporating more emerging markets and developing countries as new shareholders. The no impose conditionality, of course.
In the construction of a multipolar, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable world, the Belt and Road Initiative play a strategic and relevant role. Without a doubt, it represents one of the most decisive and effective instruments for building a global community of shared future, as proposed by President Xi Jinping. I take this opportunity to praise President Xi Jinping for the announcement of Eight Points that he made this morning.
This New Silk Road increased connectivity between people, economies, and nations. Promotes peace, cooperation, openness, brings mutual benefits, helps develop mutual political trust, and facilitates economic integration for the benefit of all.
In recent years, the emphasis on developing a “green” and “high-quality” Belt and Road Initiative has accelerated. Concepts like “ecological civilization” and environmentally friendly resource use are becoming routine. Green development and finance, innovation, and green urbanization have been elevated to the core of the global strategy.
The Initiative will also help to overcoming a long lasting and important challenge. According to the World Bank’s estimate, government investment flows could lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and another 32 million out of moderate poverty by 2030.
Chinese wisdom is shapes the Belt and Road Initiative and its principles toward building a path of social and economic development based on a multipolar, shared, inclusive, diverse, and sustainable vision.
I believe in the Chinese proverb that says, “The ocean is vast because it accepts all rivers.”
Allow me to wish great success to the High-Level Forum on Sustainable Development of the Third Forum of the Belt and Road for International Cooperation.
The success of the Belt and Road will undoubtedly continue, and the NDB is a partner in this journey.
Thank you very much!