Over the past five years, China has promoted the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. We have pursued extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, followed market principles and international norms, and carried out a number of connectivity and industrial capacity cooperation projects. The import and export volume of goods to countries along the Belt and Road has increased by 13.4% on average annually, and exchanges and cooperation in various fields have been deepened. We will guide the sound and orderly development of outbound investment and strengthen the prevention and control of overseas risks. We newly signed or upgraded six free trade agreements and increased the share of imports and exports with free trade partners from 26 percent to about 35 percent. We will firmly uphold the multilateral trading system, oppose trade protectionism, prudently respond to economic and trade frictions, and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. The report on Belt and Road development over the past five years, given in the Government Work Report to the First Session of the 14th National People's Congress, once again proves to the world that the Belt and Road cooperation has a broader space for development.

Over the past five years, in the spirit of genuine multilateralism and under the principle of joint consultation, China and other Belt and Road co-construction countries have launched and completed the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, the China-Laos Railway, the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, the Peljesac Bridge, as well as the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway, the Hungary-Serbia Railway and the Sino-Thailand Railway under construction. These countries and their people have seen tangible benefits: Pakistan has brought electricity to more people with the completion of its power station; The operation of the Mongolia-Nairobi railway in Kenya has greatly reduced freight costs and promoted trade. In many countries, Belt and Road projects have created both job opportunities for the people and more tax revenue for the governments.

Over the past five years, the circle of friends for Belt and Road cooperation has been expanding. In 2022, Argentina, Nicaragua, Syria and Malawi signed Memorandums of Understanding with China to jointly build the Belt and Road. So far, 151 countries and 32 international organizations have signed more than 200 documents on Belt and Road cooperation with China.

Over the past five years, despite the impact of COVID-19, China's investment in countries and regions along the Belt and Road has remained stable. In the first nine months of 2022, Chinese enterprises' non-financial outbound direct investment in countries and regions along the Belt and Road reached USD 15.65 billion, an increase of 5.2 percent over the same period in 2021. Among them, from January to June 2022, Chinese enterprises made large-scale investment in countries and regions along the Belt and Road. Among the single investment scale of over USD 100 million, the investment scale in the energy sector reached USD 7.06 billion, up 95% year-on-year... These data show that the huge demand for infrastructure construction in the countries and regions along the Belt and Road provides an opportunity for Chinese enterprises to expand the engineering contracting business. In the process of promoting the economic development of the countries and regions along the Belt and Road, we steadily advance the practical cooperation in green infrastructure, green energy, green transportation, green finance and other fields. The realization of green transformation of these countries will benefit from the unique strength of China.

Facts have proved that the Belt and Road Initiative has become a popular international public good and an important platform for promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Following the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the Belt and Road Initiative focuses on policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people exchanges. It has explored a new way to promote common development, achieved mutual benefit for all countries, provided a new driving force for global economic growth, and has a broader space for development.