By Li Shouen, CCTV.com Panview editor-in-chief; Feng Siyao, CCTV.com Reporter

In an interview with CCTV after President Xi Jinping's keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, John B. Veihmeyer, Global Chairman of KPMG, gave a big thumbs up to President Xi's speech, saying he delivered a refreshing message amid the rising trend of populism and protectionism.

Veihmeyer believes B&R is all about prosperity, which is not just for China; but the overall objective for the Belt and Road is to, through infrastructure and other investments, to create opportunities for development and prosperity for all the countries along its route.

He said: "The B&R is the largest proposed investment project in the human history, and it's not only a fantastic aspiration and envision on prosperity for those countries, but also opportunities for peace, for better dialogue, cooperation among people; it’s not only about economic growth, but it’s also committed to increasing peaceful prosperity around the region."

He cited Xi's remarks of "long journeys begin with a single step", and he believes the B&R is an important step in advancing the goal of common prosperity.

He also said Belt and Road countries are very important part of KPMG’s footprints, since they have practices in about 90 percent of those countries, which accounts for about 40 percent of KPMG’s global market. He added: "It’s an important initiative for us. We are incredibly proud to be part of this conference today."

According to him, KPMG can have a number of cooperation aspects within the B&R framework: The foremost is to help increase understanding on the potential and opportunities outside of China, for example, to help those companies located in the proposed nations along the routes to understand what the opportunities are; and KPMG has one of those stronger global practices in infrastructure and professional services in finance, serving as active advisors in these aspects, they can help position partners together for major infrastructure projects.

As for challenges of the Belt and Road, he thinks attracting private capital needed to accomplish the project might be one of the biggest challenges. He suggests constructive efforts to be taken to increase the institutional ability around private capital.

(The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Panview or CCTV.com)

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