Towards a new geography of trade?

Officially announced by Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has since become the centrepiece of China’s economic diplomacy. It is a commitment to ease bottlenecks to Eurasian trade by improving and building networks of connectivity acrossCentral and Western Asia, where the BRI aims to act as a bond for the projects of regional cooperation and integration already in progress in Southern Asia.But it also reaches out to the Middle East as well as East and North Africa, a truly strategic area where the Belt joins the Road. Europe, the end-point of the New Silk Roads, both by land and by sea, is the ultimate geographic destination and political partner in the BRI.This report provides an in-depth analysis of the BRI, its logic, rationale and implications for international economic and political relations.