Five years ago, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar plan that aims to connect more than 70 countries via an overland “belt” and a maritime “road.” On October 1, the CSIS Reconnecting Asia Project hosted a half-day conference examining China’s BRI, including the challenges, risks, and opportunities it poses for the United States.
As Asia continues to develop, its demand for electricity will continue to grow. The Asian Development Bank estimates that Asia will need nearly one trillion dollars in energy investments annually through 2030 to maintain growth momentum, eradicate poverty, and respond to climate change. Reconnecting Asia’s new dataset of over 11,000 power plants can help shed additional light on the region’s changing energy landscape. Find out more about how these and other infrastructure investments are reshaping the Eurasian continent by searching our interactive map and database.
The volume of EU-China cargo traffic traveling the Eurasian Economic Union’s (EAEU) railways is growing rapidly, a trend that is likely to continue in the short term. However, according to a new report by the Eurasian Development Bank’s Centre for Integration Studies, the EAEU and its neighboring countries will need to further expand transport infrastructure and remove a number of barriers to keep the momentum going.
On April 25, the Simon Chair’s Reconnecting Asia Project hosted a conversation with Natalie Lichtenstein, Chief Counsel for the 57-country negotiations that led to the AIIB’s founding and the principal drafter of the Bank’s charter, to discuss her new book: A Comparative Guide to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The World Bank’s annual Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) report tracks private investment in infrastructure projects globally. In 2017, both the total amount of private investment commitments and the number of countries receiving them increased from the previous year. Here are a few key numbers from the 2017 PPI report.