Business: Kudos and Funding

business: Although China has won kudos for trying to clean up its environment by cutting dependence on coal, its companies are making up for lost business at home by expanding overseas, according to The Guardian. Most of their funding comes from the Belt and Road Initiative BRI . Belt and road funding graphic The strategy will be reviewed at the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which will run until 27 April and will be attended by the UN secretary general, Ant nio Guterres, the International Monetary Fund head, Christine Lagarde, and 37 heads of state. In recent years Chinese banks have become the lenders of last resort for coal projects in south Asia, Africa and the Balkans that the World Bank and other international institutes have refused to fund because this dirtiest of fuels is the primary source of carbon emissions from electricity generation. Although it is not billed by organisers as a climate event, this may prove to be the most important event of the year for global emissions, such is the scale of proposed investments in energy, roads, railways, dams and ports. Critics say it is a tool to project geopolitical power, suck up overseas resources and vent the excess capacity of a slowing domestic economy, particularly in the steel, construction and power industries. China says the BRI, which was launched by the president, Xi Jinping, in 2013, accelerates development in many of the world's poorest countries and builds trade routes that benefit the global economy. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.