Risks of Belt and Road Initiative Projects in ASEAN

This paper mainly analyzes the three most salient risks, namely fiscal risk, governance risk and environmental risk host countries of BRI might confront. First, the implementation of BRI is in the context of the rapid rise of public and corporate debt levels, which increases the financial risk and vulnerability of host countries, mostly low-income developing countries. Large scale debt financing, especially in foreign currency and non-concessional terms, may lead to a rapid deterioration of the already increased debt vulnerability in the medium term. Second, most of BRI is carried out under the bilateral cooperation mechanism. The lack of transparency in largescale public project procurement and information disclosure brings governance and geopolitical risks to the host country. Third, the existing infrastructure projects under BRI has shown that the environmental risk of the host country is significantly increased, which poses a great threat to local, sustainable development.

This paper mainly analyzes the three most salient host countries of BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) might confront: Fiscal risk (case study: Laos-China Railway) Government risk (case study: East Coast Rail Link-ECRL) * Environmental and social risk (Case study: Myitsone Dam in Myanmar)