Management and Sustainability in the Belt and Road

China’s Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) is an ambitious infrastructure project conceived in 2013 by President Xi Jinping with development and investment initiatives stretching from Asia and Europe that reflect the original Silk Road with business networks through countries such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as India and Pakistan, spanning a route of more than four thousand miles and history that can be dated back more than 2200 years.

Given the background of China’s unique approach in fighting the COVID-19, and against the backdrop of sluggish economic growth, innovation and management within the sustainable development of BRI will be the key and the driving force for the post-pandemic economic recovery for many countries, especially when BRI countries now accounts for nearly 30% of China’s foreign trade and 15% of outward direct investment.

The vision to create a vast network of railways, energy pipelines, highways, and streamlined border crossings to expand the international use of Chinese currency and improve connectivity to China is good foresight and fortuitous with COVID-19 pandemic came to plague the world, and amid in the conflicts between US and China as well as a War between Russia and Ukraine.

Since the inception of BRI many books are written to cover topics ranging from globalization to detailing how China's business and politics as a major motivation for China's overseas economic activities with case studies and practices, yet seldom of these books provide structured approach to the sustainable management of BRI projects. This book is about how to manage innovation, sustainability, and business necessary to make BRI works, and how to handle the issues, problems and crisis that may arise thereof. Participants of BRI projects can take many different roles but ultimately it is team effort and leadership for each project. Here the readers will find guidelines and insights to survive and prosper in a myriad of BRI opportunities and risks. Most important of all, this book provides a glimpse of different approach for success in BRI projects, including sustainability, environmental issues, social and political aspects, technological, choice of industry, project management, education and training, governance and many more.