China’s historic hub of Xi’an revitalised as key trading crossroad under Belt and Road Initiative

“Of course, with the continuous expansion of the scale of our enterprises, we have created more jobs, which has led to the expansion of upstream and downstream enterprises. For Kazakhstan, our imported grains bring them foreign exchange income,” he said. 

Beyond freight trains, Xi’an now also has direct flights to all five Central Asian countries. 

The improved connectivity has increased total imports and exports in Shaanxi Province to about US$70.4 billion in 2021, five times more than in 2012. 

“The market share has grown. At the same time, at the national level, we have more agricultural products to supplement our country, which ensures that we have stability in not only quantity but also quality,” said Mr Liu. 

MORE SOPHISTICATED 

Apart from benefitting China alone, the BRI has also become a major force in global capacity building, according to analysts.

“It has gone on to evolve into sophisticated infrastructure, which includes the Digital Silk Road, the Arctic Silk Road, the Polar Silk Road,” adjunct senior research fellow Lim Tai Wei from the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute, told CNA. 

“The Polar Silk Road, in that sense, is rather sophisticated because you need special ships to travel through those regions. The Digital Silk Road certainly will involve Industry 4.0 technologies. And then during the pandemic, it evolved into the Health Silk Road with the emphasis on vaccines and personal safety equipment.”