The long line of bearded men in traditional Pakistani garb bow in unison, the mosque filled with heartfelt words of reverence as they kneel and pray. 

It looks like a regular holy place in Islamabad, but it's not. 

The mosque is in China, and even though these Pakistani men have come here in pursuit of international trade, they still answer their religion'‍s call to prayer here, far beyond their borders. 

This is Shaoxing, a town near Hangzhou in eastern China, where the cultural and economic exchange promoted by the Belt and Road Initiative is already thriving. 

Backed by the new 100 billion US dollar Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the separate 40 billion dollar Silk Road Fund, the Belt and Road Initiative is a new blueprint for fostering trade, investment and cultural ties across the globe. Through a patchwork of big-ticket infrastructure projects and diplomacy, China's strategy is to develop six major economic corridors connecting China and vast areas of the rest of Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and beyond. 

And a lynchpin of the plan is the 60 billion US dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a road, rail, energy, and trade zone network stretching from China all the way across Pakistan to a new port at Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. 

Muhammed Amin Nathani, managing director of the Zhejiang Combine Trading Company, has been running a textile export business in Shaoxing for a decade. 

He is among 3,000 Pakistani business people who call Shaoxing their second home, and among 20,000 who visit the Chinese city every year. 

Amin annually ships around 200 containers of fabric to Pakistan for making clothing. He says he and his fellow countrymen have in return imported much of their culture to Shaoxing. 

The town features a number of Pakistani restaurants now frequented by their Chinese friends, clients and business partners. 

There's a mosque, and even a school where children are taught a traditional Pakistani curriculum, with some Chinese elements thrown in. 

With the Belt and Road Initiative coming to Pakistan, Amin and his Chinese business partner are now looking to invest in one of the new free trade zones opening up there. 

In the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, Tanzanian businessman Salaah Mohamed stands in the kitchen of a friend's apartment making some traditional East African food. 

A mixture of Chinese and African friends and colleagues sit down to eat, and like a metaphor for the trade and new economic development the Belt and Road Initiative is expected to bring, there's plenty on the table for everyone. 

Salaah's business, Silent Ocean, ships around 350 containers to Tanzania every month, containing products that are distributed throughout much of the African continent. 

He says a new, 10 billion US dollar port at Bagamoyo and road and rail projects to be built under the Belt and Road Initiative in Tanzania will further open up African markets to his Chinese goods. 

With three of his four daughters born in Guangzhou, Salaah says he feels a special connection to China, and in his opinion, China’s expanding links with the world are a good thing.