Impact of China’s one belt one road initiative on central Asian economies

Abstract

The BRI initiative for Central Asia was announced by the President of China Xi Jinping in 2013 in the Nazarbayev University. The scale of the overall initiative is huge and it involves around 60 countries and a total of US$304.9 billion has been signed between China and Economies of Central Asia. BRI initiative is not only to improve connectivity in terms of transport, communications and energy investments but also in terms to information exchange, removal of trade barriers, financial connectivity (currency swaps, issuance of RMB ) etc. China is trying to change the image of the goods it produces from “Made in China” to “Created by China”. In Central Asia, China is looking for raw materials, minerals, energy sources while Central Asia needs modern state of the art infrastructure and industrialization projects. In this project we aim to analyse the involvement of China in Central Asia, analyse the potential benefits, risks and provide recommendations for the same.