For many years, commuters, merchants and tourists had to spend endless hours to travel by land from the Croatian mainland to the southern part of the eastern European country. A bridge recently inaugurated has made those exhausting experiences a thing of the past.

Opening for traffic earlier this week, the 2.4-km-long bridge finally connects two parts of the nation facing each other across the blue waves. Now it just takes a breezy three-minute drive for local residents and travelers to cross the strait for their trips to Dubrovnik, a medieval city known as the "Pearl of the Adriatic."

Connectivity matters, not only for tourism, but also for the movement of goods and access to services. A much smoother flow of trade is expected to create thousands of local jobs. Another piece of good news for people living in the southernmost part of Croatia is that they now can enjoy easier access to educational and health facilities on the country's mainland.

In the long run, this flagship project of Belt and Road cooperation, along with others of its kind, is expected to help revive growth in the region and spark new possibilities for common development in other parts of the world. This is precious against the backdrop of the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, a tottering global economy and mounting geopolitical uncertainties.

SHARED BENEFITS

Initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) envisions trade and infrastructure networks connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road routes.

Over the past 10 years or so, the BRI has followed the guiding principles of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits. It has made impressive headway in delivering tangible benefits to local residents through such connectivity projects as the Peljesac Bridge, the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Africa, and the new Haifa port in Israel, among others.

"We are seeing connectivity, we are seeing airports remodeling, and we are seeing ports remodeling," said Charles Onunaiju, director of the Nigeria-based Center for China Studies, when speaking of China's infrastructure investment in Africa.

When describing the economic benefits of Belt and Road cooperation, Onunaiju invoked Lekki Deep Sea Port, Nigeria's first deep seaport under construction by China Harbour Engineering Company in Lagos.

Official data show the project will create up to 170,000 jobs and bring revenues totaling $201 billion to the state and federal government through taxes, royalties and duties.

"What is really happening is that this connectivity is aiding the future and long-term growth of Africa, so that Africa can begin to participate in global supply chains," said Beatrice Matiri-Maisori, a senior economics lecturer at Kenya's Riara University, who shares similar views with Onunaiju on Africa's infrastructure development.

Besides high expectations for growth, connectivity brings certainty to a world of uncertainties.

Connectivity is at the heart of supply chain resilience, said Josephine Teo, Singapore's minister for communications and information and second minister for home affairs.

When logistic woes caused by the pandemic frustrated businesses worldwide, the China-Europe Railway Express managed to help sustain supply chains, and maintain trade transactions across the Eurasian landmass. In 2021, the total number of China-Europe freight train trips reached 15,183, and registered a yearly increase of 55 percent on average from 2016 to last year.

The railway service has also yielded gains for all countries involved. In the last year alone, trade in goods with countries along the Belt and Road stood at 11.6 trillion yuan (about $1.84 trillion).