beijing president xi jinping on friday sought to ease global concerns over debt traps and regional hegemony by china using the bri project saying his ambitious infrastructure project is not an exclusive club and vowed that it will have complete transparency and zero tolerance for corruptionin his inaugural address to the 2nd belt and road forum brf attended by 37 heads of state and governments besides officials from 150 countries and international organisations xi said china wants to build its trilliondollar belt and road initiative bri based on open green and clean cooperationindia has been boycotting the bri to protest over the 60 billion chinapakistan economic corridor cpec being laid through the pakistanoccupied kashmir the cpec which connects gwadar port in pakistans balochistan with chinas xinjiang province is the flagship project of brithis time the us also joined india in skipping the brfthe trump administration has been extremely critical of the bri and is of the view that chinas predatory financing is leaving smaller countries under huge debt endangering their sovereigntyin an apparent reference to debt trap criticism and china using bri as a geopolitical tool to attain superpower status xi said bri is not an exclusive clubeverything should be done in a transparent way and we should have zero tolerance for corruption xi saidxi said china will not engage in beggarthyneighbour currency devaluationchina will continue to improve the exchange rate formation mechanism of its currency the renminbi and keep the exchange rate generally stable on a reasonable and balanced level he saidxi said the joint building of the belt and road has opened up new space for the worlds economic growth and it has also created a new platform to boost international trade and investment expanded new practices to optimise global economic governance and made new contributions to improving peoples wellbeing in all countrieschina on thursday signalled that it is seeking to address the concerns of debt financing with a promise of sustainable financing for smaller countries to ease debt burdenconcerns over bri financing became vocal after china acquired sri lankas strategic hambantota port on a 99year lease as a debt swap in 2017the bri was launched by president xi when he came to power in 2013 it aims to link southeast asia central asia the gulf region africa and europe with a network of land and sea routeschina is doling out huge sums of money for infrastructure projects in countries from asia to africa and europe enhancing its global influencerussian president vladimir putin pakistan prime minister imran khan nepal president bidhya devi bhandari myanmar state councillor aung san suu kyi are among the top leaders taking part in the event besides france germany the uk spain japan south korea and the eu will send highlevel representatives to the forumunlike his 2017 speech to the first brf during which he announced about 124 billion additional financing for bri projects xis address this year has not contained any monetary announcements pledging fresh capital for the projectshis speech highlighted on codevelopment