Business
22:26, 09-Apr-2018
Big data shows AIIB most discussed topic among netizens regarding Belt & Road Initiative
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It’s been about five years since Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the idea of the New Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Since then, the Belt and Road Initiative has been a hot topic of discussion on the Internet.
CGTN, together with a big data company, researched tweets in the past five years and data shows the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is the most discussed topic when talking about the initiative.
Netizens posted 278,510 tweets on AIIB in the past five years, with nearly 100,000 tweets published alone in April, 2015. That’s when many people discussed who would be founding members of the bank. By April 15, 2015, the prospective founding members of the AIIB was finalized at 57, including UK, Germany, France, Russia, Israel. And many people wondered whether Japan and US would join then.
The number of tweets on AIIB peaked again at the end of May in 2015, when founding members inked the deal. Other months that saw more tweets were January 2016 when the founding ceremony was held in Beijing, and June 2016 when the first batch of projects was announced.
VCG Photo
VCG Photo
As of now, the AIIB has 84 members, compared to 57 when it’s established. The bank extended 4.2 billion US dollars of loans to 24 projects in 12 countries in the past two years, according to AIIB president Jin Liqun.
The third annual meeting of the AIIB will be held from June 25-26 in Mumbai, India. Many will have their eyes on the bank’s future plan, which is set to benefit more people along the Silk Road.
(Writing: Wang Zheng, Video: Zhu Danni, VO: Nadim Diab, Visual effects: Ran Boqiang and Fan Chenxiao)