The Belt and Road boomed in 2025

Last year, Chinese companies’ “engagement” in 150 countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) reached its highest level since the BRI was launched 12 years ago.

The value of construction deals involving Chinese companies reached USD 128 billion, up  81% on 2024. While investments totalled USD 85 billion, up 62%.

The unprecedented boom has been revealed by annual data from the Griffith Asia Institute, an Australian think-tank, and the Green Finance and Development Center, a think-tank hosted in Fudan University, Shanghai.

“I did not foresee last year that 2025 would be such a strong year [for BRI engagement],” said report author Christoph Nedopil Wang during an online launch.

“Engagement” refers to both investments by Chinese companies, implying an ownership stake in a project, and the value of construction contracts awarded to them for engineering services.

The striking upsurge comes after years of government-directed messaging, and analyst predictions, that the initiative would focus more on “small and beautiful” projects, rather than the mega projects pursued in its early years.

“Small yet beautiful should be seen as a bygone,” Nedopil Wang said, noting both the total value of construction and investment deals, and the growth in average project value.

Last year also saw notable shifts in the targets for Chinese companies’ activities around the world.

Their engagement in renewable-energy projects grew in 2025 but not as rapidly as in oil and gas projects, which will concern many.

Rapid growth in engagement in mining, and in the technology and manufacturing sector, demonstrates the evolution of the BRI since it began in 2013.

Finally, Africa became the top destination for Chinese companies’ overseas engagement.

The end of ‘small and beautiful’?

Last year saw a marked rebound in the size of projects. The average value of investments reached USD 939 million, up from USD 672 million in 2024 and three times higher than deal sizes five years ago, during the BRI’s Covid contraction. The average value of construction deals reached USD 964 million, up from USD 496 million the previous year.

Nedopil Wang says this indicates the end of “small and beautiful” BRI projects, a term promoted by the Chinese government in response to financial headwinds and the environmental and social problems which arose in the first five years of the initiative.

Chinese government discourse has certainly not dropped the emphasis, however. On 27 January, People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, stated that “more than 700 aid projects, including … small and beautiful livelihood projects” were delivered overseas in 2025.

Booming renewables – and fossil fuels

Energy was once again the top sector for engagement in Belt and Road countries, accounting for about 43% of the total. Total engagement in energy sectors reached USD 93.9 billion, the highest ever recorded.

However, while just a few years ago renewable-energy projects accounted for nearly half of total energy projects overseas, in 2025 renewables made up just 21%, while fossil fuels accounted for over 75%.

Nedopil Wang sees risks in the boom in oil and gas engagement.

“I see a rapid rise of oil and gas engagement as an environmental risk due to the associated climate emissions. They also become an economic risk under declining fossil-fuel-demand scenarios driven by electrification of mobility and scaling of green electricity,” which would lead to lower oil and gas demand, respectively, he told Dialogue Earth.

The dominance of oil and gas projects also implies an emphasis on energy extraction, rather than generation. According to the report’s breakdown, the value of investments and contracts in extractive projects amounted to USD 51.4 billion, while generation accounted for USD 25.8 billion.

That said, Chinese companies’ engagement in oil and gas projects is primarily via construction contracts rather than equity ownership. This may minimise some of the economic risks Nedopil Wang identifies.

When it comes to renewable projects, while these make up a smaller proportion of total energy engagement in 2025, they have seen a marked increase in real terms. Last year saw engagement worth USD 21.4 billion, up from USD 12.3 billion in 2024.

“2025 was both the greenest and the brownest year” for the BRI, Nedopil Wang said during the report launch.

Renewables, by their nature, also contribute to generation rather than extraction. Last year saw projects worth 23.8 GW of solar, wind and hydro generation capacity, compared to around 15 GW in 2024.

“I do not immediately read the surge as a return to fossil-fuel expansion,” notes Fikayo Akeredolu, senior research associate in climate policy and justice at the University of Bristol. She points out that while oil and gas projects accounted for a large proportion of the value of construction contracts in 2025, foreign direct investment from China is supporting renewables. Meanwhile, at least in Africa, lending from China’s government-backed policy banks is backing power-transmission projects. The lending data comes from the recently updated Chinese Loans to Africa database, published by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

“[We see] a segmentation of instruments, rather than a reversal of China’s energy-transition stance,” Akeredolu says.

Moving up value chains

Another key sector of growth in 2025 was technology and manufacturing, referring to both traditional manufacturing activities and high-tech areas such as solar PV and batteries. Its growth demonstrates the evolution of the BRI over the last 12 years, from a focus on infrastructure to an increasing interest in developing manufacturing bases overseas.

The sector saw 27% year-on-year growth in engagement and has been growing steadily since 2023. Engagement in green tech like solar PV and batteries dropped slightly compared to 2024, however.

“The growing role of tech and manufacturing highlights China’s growing ability to build and manage factories (and in particular high-tech-related factories) across the world,” Nedopil Wang told Dialogue Earth. “While the original BRI engagement was concentrated in infrastructure, the new BRI is seeing the expansion of China’s manufacturing base to overseas markets.”

Metals and mining also saw strong engagement in 2025, a record high of USD 32.6 billion. This was dominated by construction contracts for two mega projects in aluminium and steel in Kazakhstan, worth USD 19.5 billion together. However, other regions also saw major deals, the African continent in particular.

Interestingly, data from the report shows a higher proportion of engagement in processing rather than extractive mining facilities. Processing of mined minerals and metals is seen by many resource-rich countries as a key strategy for moving up value chains, particularly in green technologies. For now, however, it is unclear if the data represents a trend or simply a one-off.

In contrast, transportation infrastructure is in decline, with only USD 13.3 billion, the least since the BRI began life being touted primarily as a global connectivity project.

Nedopil Wang suggests this may be connected to problems securing finance for traditional infrastructure projects, including the fall in lending from China’s development finance banks.

Africa rising

In 2025, the largest market for Chinese companies’ engagements along the BRI was Africa. Belt and Road partners on the continent saw USD 61.2 billion worth of engagement, a 283% expansion compared to 2024, according to the report. The majority of that engagement was in the form of construction contracts, rather than investment.

Nedopil Wang indicates this may have to do with Chinese companies seeking ways to avoid US tariffs.

Akeredolu from the University of Bristol points to “Africa’s growing role in resource security amid global supply-chain fragmentation” as another reason shaping the boom in Chinese engagement in African economies.

“Whether this is good news for African governments depends on bargaining power,” says Akeredolu. “Where states can secure local content, downstream value addition, or revenue-sharing, opportunities exist. Where engagement is limited to turnkey construction without equity or technology transfer, the developmental upside is thinner.”