Belt and Road Monitor, Edition 4, 2025
This edition of the Belt and Road Monitor covers developments from 1 to 31 March 2025. If you enjoy our Belt and Road coverage, consider checking out Janes IntelTrak, a visual analytic tool that tracks and maps the global activities of Chinese and Russian companies in real time and includes expanded analysis of projects highlighted in "Top Developments." The Monitor draws from transactional data collected daily by our proprietary tool, Janes IntelTrak, as well as research compiled by our team of analysts.
Belt & Road at a Glance
Chinese BRI Transactions in USD Billion
Graph notes: These transactions include Chinese loans and grants but also contracts and subcontracts. Not all transactions will come to fruition, and this graphic does not account for cancellations, disruptions, failure to disburse funds, etc. This depicts the announced values of transactions with involving Chinese entities operating overseas, which could include Chinese funded projects but also foreign funded projects involving Chinese contractors, across multiple BRI-linked sectors.
Top Developments
Hytera Communications to Lead Digital Transformation of Key Sectors in Seychelles
On 5 March 2025, Hytera Communications signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cable & Wireless Seychelles (CWS) to promote digital modernisation across key government and industrial sectors including public safety, energy, transportation and tourism. The partnership will focus on joint development of the Seychelles Emergency Communication Redundant Network and Hytera will provide its equipment, such as push-to-talk over cellular devices, mission critical services, core networks, body-worn cameras, digital evidence management, and cloud-based platforms. In 2022, equipment from Hytera was banned by the US Federal Communications Commission citing risks to the US national security.
Beijing Haoyang Cloud Data Technology to Invest USD2.13 Billion in Thai Data Centre
On 17 March 2025, the Thailand Board of Investment approved an investment from Beijing Haoyang Cloud Data Technology (Haoyang) to open a new data centre in WHA Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate 4, Rayong Province, Thailand. Haoyang will invest USD2.13 billion to construct a data centre capable of handling an information technology load of 300 megawatts (MW). The data centre will be Haoyang’s first outside of China and the company has said the it will be Thailand’s largest data centre.
China Western Power Industrial Signs USD1.7 Billion in Contracts for Clean Energy in Laos
On 24 March 2025, China Western Power Industrial, along with Embark Aspiration, a Singapore-based company, signed a USD1.679 billion contract with Xekong Power Plant of Laos for a clean energy project. The contract includes USD1.45 billion for China Western Power Industrial to design, procure, and supply raw materials and equipment for the power plant. The contract will involve constructing an 1,800 MW supercritical power station and a 500-kilovolt (KV) transmission and transformation project in Saravan, Laos.
Zimbabwean, Chinese Companies Form USD2.5 Billion Partnership for Energy Projects in Tanzania, Kenya
On 24 March 2025, CHINT Group, a Chinese smart energy systems solution provider, and Intratrek ZW, a Zimbabwe-based energy contractor, signed a USD2.5 billion strategic agreement to collaborate to construct critical electrical infrastructure projects across Kenya and Tanzania. The agreement includes a nationwide electric grid modernisation initiative in Tanzania and the construction of 13 power transmission lines in Kenya.
COSCO Establishes Rio de Janiero Office as Brazil is Poised to Gain from Trade Shifts
On 28 March 2025, COSCO Shipping opened a regional office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as the company positions itself in Latin America for expansion. The Chinese shipping company continues to expand trade infrastructure in Brazil to increase connectivity between China and one of its primary agricultural suppliers. Chinese companies have recently been making investments in Brazil to develop Atlantic Ocean linkages and in the agricultural and extractive industries.
New Project Locations
What They're Saying
From the University of Exeter’s review of the article, “Blowback: When China’s Belt and Road Initiative Meets Democratic Institutions” by ANDREA GHISELLI, Lecturer, University of Exeter and PIPPA MORGAN, Lecturer, Duke Kunshan University
“Chinese construction and engineering contractors working as part of the country’s Belt and Road initiative face greater challenges in democratic countries…Closer ties with the United States and the presence of institutions that allow groups to show their opposition limits the business of Chinese contractors in less authoritarian nations. This negative effect becomes even stronger when the host government joins the BRI. The experts argue that this is because joining the BRI by signing a BRI Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) is an important and highly visible event that attracts that attention and trigger the negative reaction by parts of the public, the elites, and international actors, like the United States, that oppose Chinese involvement."
By the Numbers
