Decrypting the Belt and Road Initiative: Barriers and Development Paths for Global Logistics Networks

Benjamin Nitsche

doi:10.3390/su12219110

Abstract

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious infrastructure and development project promoting sustainable economic growth through facilitating prosperous trade across Eurasia and Africa; however, its potential remains underexploited. Logistics networks along BRI routes face several challenges that hinder efficient operations. In addition, although uncertain of how the initiative will develop, logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) practitioners must align their networks with future developments. This study aims to synthesize current barriers to the BRI from an LSCM perspective; propose strategies for dealing with them; and outline and assess conceivable BRI development scenarios to create awareness for possible international logistics network developments. The study builds on a structured and moderated Nominal Group Technique exercise among 15 LSCM professionals to extract current barriers, mitigation strategies, and potential development scenarios, followed by a survey among 52 LSCM professionals to assess those issues. The study synthesizes and assesses 17 BRI barriers for LSCM practice and proposes 20 strategies for dealing with them, assessed in terms of effectiveness and complexity. Moreover, 14 development scenarios are assessed in terms of their probability of becoming reality and impact on the vulnerability of logistics networks, categorized into four scenario clusters (monitor, prepare, propel, and exploit) for guiding LSCM practice.

Highlights

The ancient Silk Road was a vast network of land and sea trade routes connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa and facilitating trade and cultural exchanges from the second century BCE to the 18th century [1]
Application of round robin procedure to share strategies dealing with selected Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
Nominal Group Technique (NGT) guidelines do not prescribe a definite minimum or maximum number of group members, previous logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) research has found that on-site groups of 8 to 23 participants, separated into sub-groups, are appropriate [38,51]

Summary

Introduction

The ancient Silk Road was a vast network of land and sea trade routes connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa and facilitating trade and cultural exchanges from the second century BCE to the 18th century [1]. There are others that argue that an additional major motivation of China behind the BRI might be getting long-term access to the natural resources of Africa and Central Asia [7,8]. Due to an increasing focus on manufacturing labor-intensive goods for the international market, China developed into one of the biggest economies and trade partners in the world [4]. This opening up to international affairs is evident in the development of China’s five-year plans. This shows the importance of the initiative for China and is, from China’s point of view, a consistent step in opening up to even more international trade and the global interlinking of value chains

Objectives

Results

Conclusion