Silk Roads Forum closes with $97.2 billion worth of deals, China says

The 3rd New Silk Roads Forum ended on Wednesday in Beijing with trade agreements worth 97.2 billion dollars (91.9 billion euros), 458 agreements and more than 100,000 training opportunities, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced. 

Wang told a press conference that the forum was a "complete success" as "all agenda items" were addressed, demonstrating that the representatives of the 110 countries present "did not come to talk for the sake of talking". 

He said China was committed to building an "open global economy" and developing a "digital economy with a non-discriminatory environment". 

Wang emphasised during his appearance before the media the "unity and cooperation" shown by the more than 10,000 participants in the forum, who are on the "right side of history", despite the fact that the world is in an era of "confrontation and Cold War mentality". 

For this reason, the Chinese minister stressed that the New Silk Roads initiative does not seek to confront other infrastructure projects, such as those of the European Union or the United States, but that they want to "compete without denying the other and without politicising". 

"Maybe we can have a global competition on who can build more roads, railways and bridges for developing countries (...) we are confident that we are capable of doing it," Wang said. 

According to the Chancellor, infrastructure is an "urgent necessity" for developing countries to achieve "economic growth". 

The New Silk Roads, which are ten years old since their implementation, are the star project of Chinese President Xi Jinping, with which the Asian giant seeks to seduce what it calls the Global South, with multi-billion dollar investment projects which, however, have also been criticised for the risk of indebtedness.