AKIPRESS.COM - President Xi Jinping on November 8 said China will contribute 40 billion U.S. dollars to set up a Silk Road Fund at a dialogue meeting on strengthening connectivity and improving cooperation in the country's neighborhood, reports Xinhua.

Xi made the pledge when making a five-point proposal aimed at promoting interconnected development in the Asia-Pacific region as he met with leaders of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

The new Silk Road Fund will be used to provide investment and financing support to carry out infrastructure, resources, industrial cooperation, financial cooperation and other projects related to connectivity for countries along the "Belt and Road", Xi said, referring to China's Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives.

He added that the fund will be "open" to active participation by investors from both within and outside of Asia.

According to Xi, the goal of the new Silk Road Fund is to "break the bottleneck in Asian connectivity by building a financing platform."

An Asian Development Bank report estimates that Asia as a whole needs as much as 730 billion U.S. dollars per year in infrastructure investment before 2020.

The Chinese President said funding stands out as the most challenging issue in Asia's connectivity development.

"To address these and other problems, the efforts by a single or several countries are far from adequate," said Xi.

"Only by building extensive partnerships where all will think and work in unison, can we expect to achieve positive results," he said.

Xi put forward the "Belt and Road" initiatives to build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road during two separate visits to Central Asia and Southeast Asia in 2013, in a bid to revive the historic trade routes by boosting cooperation between China and other Asian nations.