AKIPRESS.COM - Chinese companies invested nearly US$ 15 billion in countries taking part in Beijing’s new Silk Road initiative last year, up one-fifth from 2014, President Xi Jinping said in Uzbekistan, lauding a scheme that is one of his key foreign policies, South China Morning Post said.

Under the programme announced by Xi in 2013 and also known as the “One Belt, One Road”, China aims to invest in infrastructure projects including railways and power grids in central, west and southern Asia, as well as Africa and Europe.

China has dedicated US$40 billion to a Silk Road Fund and the idea was the driving force behind the establishment of the US$50 billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Xi said in comments carried by state media late on Wednesday that China’s trade with countries participating in the new Silk Road exceeded US$1 trillion in 2015, accounting for a quarter of its total foreign trade.

“The Belt and Road Initiative’s primary planning and deployment has been completed and is now stepping onto the stage of taking root and intensive cultivation for sustained development,” Xi told the Uzbek parliament.

Regions like the Balkans and Central Asia are key to the project, the government has said. Xi’s trip to Uzbekistan followed trips to Serbia and Poland.