The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a global initiative launched by China to promote cooperation and investment in more than 150 countries. These projects usually involve high influx of money transferred to developing economies in order to finance big infrastructure projects. While China has been accused of using its geopolitical influence and high capital availability to impose certain peculiar repayment conditions, it has also been praised for providing development to countries often ignored by traditional international lenders. Even though the real impact of these projects will only be fully visible in the next few decades, current data and literature already offer a basis to analyze the effects of the BRI for recipient countries. In particular, Central Asia represents an interesting case study, being one of the first regions involved in the initiative and being geographically very close to Mainland China. This paper will present the scope of BRI in Central Asia, mentioning the specific challenges in the area and eventually studying the correlation between Chinese investment in the region and overall development of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
