China Exim Bank boosts lending to Belt and Road projects

The Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank) made more loans last year to countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious program proposed by China for local growth and regional cooperation.

The government-backed policy bank financed more than 1,000 projects in 49 countries, covering transportation, electricity, resources, telecommunication and industrial parks, with outstanding loans up 46 percent from the beginning of 2015 to 520 billion yuan (nearly 80 billion U.S. dollars) at the year-end.

The Belt and Road Initiative promotes a trade and infrastructure network to connect Asia, Europe and Africa.

"Those projects are not only a boon for local growth but facilitate a unified regional market and industrial value chains," China Exim Bank spokesperson Dai Peng said on Thursday.

A railway under construction in Laos will make the country more connected to the outside world, and a highway in Tajikistan will improve domestic transportation, Dai said.

China Exim Bank has also set up three cooperation funds for investment in Belt and Road areas and hopes more capital can be encouraged to join in, Dai added.

Thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative, China's investment in countries along the routes remained robust against global economic headwinds. In the first 11 months of last year, Chinese enterprises invested 14.01 billion U.S. dollars, up 35.3 percent from a year ago. Endi