BEIJING – China is setting up a new agency that will channel foreign aidand plan strategic projects related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) -President Xi Jinping’s signature connectivity initiative to industrialiseEurasia.
The formation of the State International Development Cooperation Agency(SIDCA) is part of a massive institutional revamp, to steer China’s ongoingtransition, marked by domestic reform and deeper engagement with the restof the world, led by the Communist Party of China (CPC).
The SIDCA will be answerable to the State Council, China’s cabinet, led byPrime Minister Li Keqiang. It integrates roles which were earlierfragmented between the foreign and commerce ministries.
SIDCA’s focus will be to “better serve the country’s global strategy and tobuild the Belt and Road Initiative”, the State Council said.
The US$900 billion BRI aspires to recreate and expand the old Silk Roadtrading routes between Asia, Europe and Africa.
The State-run news agency Xinhua reported that the new agency “will beresponsible for making strategic guidelines, plans and policies on foreignaid”. It will also be involved in making “foreign aid plans and overseeingand evaluating their implementation,” it observed.
The decision, which is pending final approval during the ongoing session ofthe National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s parliament, is in tune withBeijing’s emergence as a global aid donor, nearly at par with the UnitedStates.
According to a study by U.S.-based AidData, released in October, Chinapitched $350 billion in foreign aid and other forms of State financing infive major regions of the world, between 2000-14.
The U.S. overseas aid in the same period was marginally higher at $394.6billion. But China could catch up soon as it started becoming a serious aiddonor only in 2009.