More countries will embrace BRI thanks to Xi's speech: analyst

Muhammad Zamir Assadi, a Pakistani political analyst and a journalist with Country Media Group based in Islamabad, said the major speech made by President Xi Jinping on Wednesday "has drawn down the future blueprint for the next decade of the high quality development of the BRI framework".

Zamir said this after he attended the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

At the ceremony, Xi made a keynote speech titled "Building an Open, Inclusive and Interconnected World for Common Development".

"I think after this speech, the international community is looking forward to more and more outcomes and benefits under this BRI framework," Zamir said.

The speech "is really a layout for those countries who want to join hand with China with mutual consultation based on win-win situations", he said.

"More and more countries will be joining the BRI framework after this speech and after this successful event because the speech has told the international community that the achievements of China are to be availed by all," he said.

The speech delivered by Xi attaches great importance and significance because "it has highlighted the great achievements and the contributions of Belt and Road Initiative in the first decade of its development", he said.

"And I think President Xi Jinping has rightly pointed out that we have to choose the right side of history and the participating countries, who are the partners of China, with a mutual consultation and mutual collaboration, have also chosen the right path of development," he said.

The mutual learning and mutual working among countries participating in the BRI "is the dire need of the time", and "this need is definitely based on our mere choice, and is based on our requirements by our local people", Zamir noted.

"Our local people in different participating countries are looking for the peaceful development that should not be attached to any kind of political strings and the Belt and Road Initiative offers choices of development that are meeting the needs of the local people," he said.

The speech from President Xi Jinping "has sent the message to the international community that it is a time of unity, it is a time of cooperation, it is a time of stepping ahead together", he noted.

"We should take steps toward obtaining peaceful development and we should reject block mentality, we should reject the voices of anti-globalization, unilateralism and we should reject the mentality of the egoism," he said.