By CGTN’s Wang Haidi

International Trade Centre (ITC) chief Arancha Gonzalez makes a great judge of the Belt and Road Initiative. The executive director of the ITC, a World Trade Organization (WTO) subsidiary dedicated to the internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has 20 years’ experience of trade and development matters.

As Beijing hosted the Belt and Road Forum on Sunday and Monday, CGTN sat down with Gonzalez to get her take on the initiative.

She told us she uses three “S”s to describe the Belt and Road: “Size” – it’s the largest program launched since the Second World War’s Marshall Plan to help develop other economies; “South” – it originated in China, a southern partner instead of the traditional northern partners in development cooperation; and “Scope” – it includes both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ infrastructure, the potential to cover every aspect of people’s daily lives.

CGTN also asked about concerns raised by Western media on the Belt and Road, such as whether the trade routes will involve “one-way traffic” only benefiting China, and whether China’s exporting of its excess industrial capacity will cause many people in other countries to lose their jobs.

Gonzalez replied that pundits should give the initiative time to play out before judging it, while at the same time companies and workers should get ready to adjust to new market conditions.

She said “connectivity” is the key word for the Belt and Road – connecting SMEs to new markets and finding jobs for more women and young people.

“China and its partners have a chance to lay the foundations for SMEs to benefit from the new trade highways in Asia, Africa, and beyond,” the international trade expert concluded.