Belt and Road brings new economic impetus: Xi Jinping
President Xi Jinping on Wednesday said the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has yielded fruitful achievements over the past decade, creating new opportunities for global development and injecting new impetus into the global economy.  Addressing the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Xi said the blueprint has been successfully turned into real projects, with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organisations signing cooperation documents.  "Over these 10 years, we have stayed committed to this founding mission. Thanks to our joint efforts, Belt and Road international cooperation has gotten off the ground, grown rapidly, and produced fruitful outcomes. Belt and Road cooperation has extended from the Eurasian continent, to Africa and Latin America," he said.  Xi said the initiative has improved both physical and institutional connectivity by building infrastructure and boosting the flow of information, human resources, capital and technology.  "We have endeavoured to build a global network of connectivity consisting of economic corridors, international transportation routes, and information highway, as well as railways, roads, airports, ports, pipelines, and power grids, covering the land, the ocean, the sky and the internet," he said. "This network has boosted the flow of goods, capital, technologies, and human resources among countries involved."  Xi added that the country will take eight steps to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, including building a multidimensional connectivity network, supporting an open world economy, carrying out practical cooperation, promoting green development, advancing scientific and technological innovation, supporting people-to-people exchanges, promoting integrity-based Belt and Road cooperation, and strengthening institutional building for international Belt and Road cooperation.  In particular, he said Beijing will scrap all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector, put forward a global initiative for artificial intelligence governance, step up reform in state-owned enterprises and digital economy, increase the number of joint laboratories to 100, and set up pilot zones for Silk Road e-commerce cooperation. Going forward, Xi said China will continue to work with BRI partner countries to build a global community with shared future, and stand against unilateral sanctions, economic coercion and decoupling, and supply chain disruption.   "Only when the world is good, China will be good. And only when China is good, the world will be good." Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indonesian President Joko Widodo were sitting next to Xi at the opening ceremony in Beijing.  Chief Executive John Lee, former CE CY Leung, and the executive deputy director of Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Zhou Ji, were also present.