BY SIMINA MISTREANU
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping promised foreign companies greater access to China’s huge market and more than $100 billion in new financing for other developing economies as he opened a forum Wednesday on his signature Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
Xi’s initiative has built power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepened China’s ties with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast. But the massive loans backing the projects have burdened poorer countries with heavy debts, in some cases leading to China taking control of those assets.
At the forum’s opening ceremony at the ornate and cavernous Great Hall of the People, Xi promised that two Chinese-backed development banks – the China Development Bank and the Export–Import Bank of China – will each set up 350 billion yuan ($47.9 billion) financing windows. An additional 80 billion yuan ($11 billion) will be invested
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