MINSK – Belarus intends to become one of the central platforms of the new Silk Road in Eurasia, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in his annual address to the country’s people and parliament on Friday.
“Alongside major socioeconomic challenges and misbalances, there are also new global projects of cooperation with an open architecture such as the Silk Road economic belt emerging. Belarus cannot stay on the sidelines of these processes. We should become one of the central platforms of the new Silk Road in the Eurasian region, especially as our Chinese partners are offering this to us: to make the most of the incentives that the People’s Republic of China is providing in promoting this initiative,” Lukashenko said.
The distinctive feature of this initiative is that “there is no (self-interest) on the part of a major power: going to these regions, China is investing enormous funds along this road in the development of the states that the Silk Road will run through,” Lukashenko said.
