Does Chinese policy banks' overseas lending favor Belt Road Initiative countries?

Abstract

This paper examines how Chinese policy banks responded to China's Belt Road Initiative (BRI) using transactionlevel international syndicated loan data. Employing a difference-in-differences (DID) estimation, we show that Chinese policy banks increased aggregate lending (number of loans and loan amounts) to firms from the BRI countries compared to those from the non-BRI countries after the initiative. This increase was more pronounced among firms along the continental route and in the infrastructure sectors. We also find that Chinese policy banks' loans to the BRI borrowers were associated with reduced spread, lowered collateral requirement, and extended maturity. Moreover, our results suggest that Chinese policy banks gave more support to firms from the BRI countries with weaker economic performance, more fragile institutional quality, and closer political interests. Overall, our study highlights the supportive role played by Chinese policy banks in implementing a national globalization strategy.

Vocational education facilitating the high-quality development of Chinese SMEs: theoretical mechanisms, real constraints and proposed strategies

“…At the national level, encourage SMEs and vocational schools to actively respond to the "Belt and Road" initiative, sharing their experiences in industry-education integration and science-education fusion with countries involved. The "Belt and Road" initiative is a long-term international project undertaken by China to integrate into the global economy, aiming to deepen global infrastructure construction and trade [44] . Domestically, the government should adhere to the strategy of revitalizing the country through science and technology, practice the parallel Employers should discard inherent prejudices against vocational education.…”