Dr. Palitha Kohona

New opportunity for developing countries

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013 to herald in a new era of a more prosperous shared future for humanity through the investment of massive sums, in particular by China, in the countries that became party to it. The BRI has been described as a modern-day evolution of the fabled Silk Road of the past. The Silk Road began to prosper during the westward expansion of China's Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). Imperial envoy Zhang Qian was commissioned to explore the unknown lands beyond the region in search of potential trading opportunities and allies. It largely brought imperial order to the once unmanageable western region in what are today the Central Asian countries of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as in today's India and Pakistan to the south. The trade routes extended for more than 4,000 miles, went through the Middle East, and began to include prosperous European centers.