Iraq was the top target for China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative last year, receiving US$10.5 billion in financing for projects including a heavy oil power plant, a study published on Wednesday said.
In total, China’s engagement through investments and contractual cooperation across the 144 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries was US$59.5 billion, in line with the US$60.5 billion in 2020, according to the report by the Green Finance and Development Center at Shanghai’s Fudan University.
In Arab and Middle Eastern countries, investment last year rose by about 360 percent and construction engagement by 116 percent compared with 2020, the study said.
Iraq, where the US ended its combat mission last year, has become the third-biggest partner in BRI for energy engagement since 2013, after Pakistan and Russia, the study said.
China and Iraq are cooperating to build the US$5 billion Al-Khairat heavy oil power plant in Karbalah Province in Iraq and China’s Sinopec Corp (中國石油化工) has won the contract to develop Iraq’s Mansuriya gas field near the Iranian border. The two countries are also cooperating on an airport, solar and other projects.
China’s BRI contract values last year were US$45.6 billion, up from US$37 billion a year earlier, while investments shrank to US$13.9 billion from US$23.4 billion.
Green energy finance and investment edged up to US$6.3 billion compared with US$6.2 billion in 2020, and China did not engage in coal projects last year, in line with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) pledge not to build coal-fired plants overseas.
For this year, the researchers expect an acceleration of green projects, in line with government guidelines, although oil-related finance and investment under BRI surged to US$6.4 billion last year from US$1.9 billion in 2020.
The Fudan University researchers expect Chinese BRI engagement to decline, citing China’s five-year plan for 2021-2025 to invest US$550 billion abroad including non-BRI countries, down 25 percent from US$740 billion in the 2016-2020 period. Chinese BRI engagement declined by 48 percent last year from pre-pandemic levels, the researchers said.
After Iraq, Serbia and Indonesia were the top targets for BRI construction engagement.
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