How Belt and Road is blazing a trail through pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags the world into recession and depression, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative has rekindled some hope.

In addition to concrete BRI projects, the Belt and Road has also played a vital role in facilitating global supply chains – especially for the crucial medical goods – and inspired digital solutions to fight against the pandemic around the world in the year.

One of the greatest beneficiaries of the Health Silk Road was Serbia. The Chinese medical team to Serbia arrived on March 21, and in the next two months toured across over 20,000 km to visit medical institutions, talk to their counterparts, share experience and recommend measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Besides, in partnership with China's biotech company BGI Group, Serbia built two Fire Eye testing labs with a capacity of testing 3,000 samples per day.

Between January and November, China-Europe freight trips rose 51 percent year-on-year to 11,270, transporting 64,000 tons of anti-pandemic materials to European countries, including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Poland and Hungary.

China has sent to Arab countries more than 1 million testing kits and over 18 million masks, and dispatched medical teams to eight Arab nations, with over 40 video meetings convened between the health experts from both sides.

China's relief efforts have also included a $20 million donation to the World Health Organization, sending doctors to Iran, building a Polymerase Chain Reaction laboratory in Iraq to increase the country's coronavirus testing capacity, donating test kits to the Philippines and sending protective equipment to Pakistan.

The aid has gone as far as Latin America, where China has had a significant presence through donations at a time when the region has been hit hard by the pandemic, sending medical supplies to many countries there.

Helmets with thermal imaging cameras that detect fevers in real time, masks and biosafety suits as well as nearly two tons of equipment have been donated to Argentina in June. It marks the second time that China has sent medical aid to the South American country since the coronavirus outbreak.

Chinese businessmen have donated ventilators, test kits, thermometers, 1.6 million masks and more than 230,000 medical supplies to Chile.

Colombia received an aid shipment from China on May 7 to tackle the coronavirus. The Chinese government delivered $1.5 million worth of medical supplies. The supplies included 30,000 nucleic acid tests, 680,000 masks, glasses, gloves, protective suits, infrared thermometers and respirators.

In March, Venezuela received a delegation of eight Chinese specialists to join efforts in the face of the coronavirus crisis. Along with the medical mission, 22 tons of medical equipment arrived, including 500,000 test kits, ventilators, protective suits, glasses, masks and gloves.

China has also donated medical supplies to Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador and Cuba in critical times of the pandemic.

Figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China show that China has provided anti-epidemic assistance to 47 countries and regions since the outbreak of COVID-19, delivering more than 1,700 tons of medical supplies. This could not have happened without the Air Silk Road.

The World Bank Group predicted that the global economy will suffer the deepest recession since World War II with a 5.2 percent drop in GDP this year, a figure that highlights the urgent need for the resumption of production.

With strict protective measures, overseas Chinese workers are joining hands with their local colleagues to speed up the construction of landmark projects across the world.

The equipment of China's Norinco for the construction of the Senj Wind Farm, which arrived during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Europe, had been stranded in Croatia's Zadar Port.

Thanks to the collaboration and hard work of Chinese and Croatian employees, so far, 50 percent of the contract value has been completed, said Liu Zhen, general manager of Norinco's Zagreb branch.

By the end of this year, 13 wind turbines on the farm will be ready for power generation and 39 wind turbines will be up and running by next April.

At Montenegro's Mt Mozura, the wind turbines built by the Shanghai Electric Power Company have started spinning as the country's new highway stretches towards the border with Serbia.

The Peljesac Bridge, a 2.4 km bridge built by the China Road and Bridge Corporation that will connect the Croatian mainland with the Peljesac Peninsula, is expected to be finished next year. It is an iconic infrastructure project funded by the European Union.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has inevitably delayed our project, as the production of steel box girders was halted, while international travel restrictions left us understaffed," said Lu Shengwei, a representative of the Chinese company in Croatia.

To catch up with the schedule, the company even ordered a direct charter flight for its welders.

As the production of the steel box girders resumed in China after the outbreak was under control, the project began to get back on track.

Once completed, the Belgrade-South Adriatic highway built by the company, also called the E763, will greatly facilitate the transportation of passengers and goods between the Balkans and the hinterland of Europe.

Aleksandar Milic, technical director of the Stanari Thermal Power Plant, the first China-built coal-fired power plant in Europe, said the operation of the plant in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina meets or even exceeds the EU standards for controlling emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and dust.

For the China-built solar power plant in Hungary's Kaposvar, with a total investment of around 100 million euros (about $121 million), Hungary signed no loan or electricity purchase fulfillment guarantee, which means that no government debt was added due to the project, said Meng Fanye, director of the project.

Besides Europe, BRI projects are also underway in some areas in Asia, despite all the obstacles brought by the pandemic.

In Cambodia, Chinese and Cambodian workers are forging ahead with the construction of the country's first expressway.

Connecting the capital city of Phnom Penh and the deep-sea port province of Preah Sihanouk in southwestern Cambodia, the $2 billion Chinese-invested expressway is expected to become the artery of Cambodia's economy.

In Sri Lanka, a Chinese operation and maintenance team has been doing its utmost to ensure the normal operation of Lakvijaya Power Station, a Chinese-built power plant that provides about 40 percent of the nation's electricity supply.

Pang Tusheng, a technician of the team, said he planned to return to China to attend his daughter's wedding, but the pandemic changed his plans.

Anyway, we wish human defeat the COVID-19 as earlier as possible. The world recovered and our production of homeware products and crafts will be as normal soon.