The program’s known worldwide as One Belt & One Road Initiative or BRI. It consists of the Silk Road Economic Belt with the Maritime Silk Road. This strategy was offered by the Government of China. The key purpose of it is the creation of connectivity and cooperation between the countries of Eurasia and PRC. It demonstrates the desire of China to take part in the international affairs and play a role of a trading network center. The program was initiated in 2013.
The initiative concerns many different issues including:
- construction materials
- investments in infrastructure
- real estate building
- iron/steel
- the automobile industry
- highway/railway
- power grid.
It is considered one of the biggest projects in the history, as it works in more than 68 countries. According to the 2017 data, it covers over 60% of the global population and about 41% of the GDP.
China exporting urban transit cars to Nigeria
The Locomotive & Rolling Stock Works company from PRC, which is a part of the state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, has built advanced train cars for the urban transit system at their Dalian factory. The cars were delivered to Africa, which was the first shipment – a milestone for the roll-on, roll-off logistics niche for the BRI.
There were 15 cars manufactured in total. According to the Wen Wei Po newspaper, the delivery to Lagos, Nigeria was carried out in July of 2016. The authorities of the Metropolitan Area Transport in Lagos ordered the transit cars to create their first Blue Line with the length of 27 kilometers. The authorities have plans for a purchase of 14 more rail cars, which are able to provide the speed up to 100 km/h when coupled in trains.
Besides the urban transit cars, Chinese firms export locomotives and freight trains to the African countries. The main aims for them now are to win more contracts for the urban transit cars delivery in order to widen the commercial reach of the country in the framework of the Belt & Road Initiative as well as to support international cooperation.