BRI will become the "main pillar between China and the Latin America region", said Pierotic, adding that it will not only improve unimpeded trade, but also boost the finance connectivity, logistics connectivity, people-to-people connectivity.

Ni Haidong, Party chief of Beijing Language and Culture University, also attended the event.

The event ended with enthusiastic applause, having turned out to be a timely platform for attendees to exchange ideas on the outcomes of BRF, which concluded the same day. The talks were broadcast live on China Daily's website and app, as well as China Daily's Sina Weibo, Tencent Video, Toutiao, Bilibili, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Vision China was established January 2018. By inviting well-known political, business and academic speakers to tell China's story from global perspectives and discuss major global topics, it aims to become a broad platform to ensure China's voice is better heard in the new era as well as to build a new channel for responding to global concerns on hot China-related issues through profound debate.

What they say

I think the Belt and Road Initiative can help improve connectivity between countries and facilitate international trade. It can also provide business opportunities for these countries. I think students majoring in international trade will be very interested in getting more knowledge about the plan.

Dilbar Hussain, freshman majoring in international trade at Beijing Language and Culture University

From today's Vision China, I am proud to learn that my country, Chile, is part of the Belt and Road Initiative. I think more countries from Latin America should join the initiative as we see real changes taking place because of it. I think the BRI makes greater integration, greater globalization and more dialogue possible and is good for Latin America.

Roxanna Serrano, hotel services team leader at Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions

The Belt and Road Initiative has empowered small businesses and less-developed countries with fair opportunities to develop. And what's more important, the initiative is not only about building infrastructure and corridors for trading goods but also about exchanging thoughts and ideas. It's not simply a one-way output from China. It's a mutual exchange in which China can learn from other cultures as well.

Tim Clancy, founder and CEO of Tim Studio, a company dedicated to promoting Sino-Australian cultural exchanges

One of the reasons I studied Chinese is that almost everybody in my country is attracted to China's fast development, and we want to learn from its experience. The Belt and Road Initiative obviously has brought Tunisia and China closer, but it also explains what a Chinese Dream would be like－sharing, cooperation and common prosperity.

Ben Khalifa Fadwa, master's degree student from Tunisia at Beijing Language and Culture University, majoring in teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages

My working experience in Africa has shown me essential features of the BRI. It is not only about simply building factories or infrastructure in the local areas, but more important, many local residents can learn new skills through participating in the project. The initiative has enhanced mutual understanding and built trust, eliminating stereotypes of each other.

Bu Hechun, partner at Shannon.AI, a Beijing startup in artificial intelligence