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CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VIII (2) other resources for infrastructure development, this initiative facilitates industrial, financial, and economic cooperation among the countries along the BRI. 18 The geography of this initiative includes the African continent, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, South Caucasus (including Armenia), Middle East, Russia, South Asia, South East Asia, 19 and China has also called on Latin American countries to join the initiative, making it a global program. 20 The BRI requires heavy capital investments, including projected $1.3 trillion annually until 2030, which is a massive development finance initiative. The BRI initiative can be categorized by having the first continental roads and rails connecting China to Europe through Central Asia, by following the traditional “Silk Road route,” and the second route is the Maritime Silk Road, which connects Chinese ports to the Indian Subcontinent, goes through the Indian Ocean to Africa and crosses the Suez Canal, continuing on to Europe. 21 The program was announced in President Xi’s speech in Astana on September 7, 2013 and a few days later at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek on September 13, 2013. 22 In the document called “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road,” China announced that the 21 st century is a “new era marked by the theme of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit” and that “the Belt and Road Initiative is a systematic project, which should be jointly built through consultation to meet the interests of all, and efforts should be made to integrate the development strategies of the countries along the Belt and Road” for reinforcing the Silk Road Spirit – "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit" carried through generations for thousands of years. 23                                                              18 Zeng Lingliang, "Conceptual Analysis of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: A Road Towards a Regional Community of Common Destiny," Chinese Journal of International Law 15, no. 3 (2016): 517-541. 19 The Economist and Intelligence Unit Report, "One Belt, One Road: An Economic Roadmap,” March 2016, (available at http://www.iberchina.org/files/2016/obor_economist.pdf). 20 Rumi Aoyama, “‘One Belt, One Road’: China's New Global Strategy,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 5, no. 2 (2016): 3-22. 21 Davies Gloria, Jeremy Goldkorn, and Luigi Tomba, eds. Pollution: China Story Yearbook 2015. ANU Press, 2016, in chapter "One Belt One Road: International Development Finance with Chinese Characteristics", 245-250. 22 Zhenis Kembayev, “Towards a Silk Road Union,” Chinese Journal of International Law, 15, Iss. 3, (2016): 691–699. 23 Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, jointly released by the National Development and Reform 8