Armenia and the Belt and Road Initiative

Sos Khachikyan is the Head of the Chair of Macroeconomics, and the Coordinator of the Centre for Digital Transformation and Data Analyses at the Armenian State University of Economics. He has more than 20 years of research experience in education, communication and technology-based management. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the ISDP, Sweden. He is also a Professor at the Department of Regional and Global Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and a Senior Fellow at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands. He is the Series Editor for Routledge Studies on Think Asia. Ralph M. Wrobel is Professor of Economics and Coordinator of the East Asia Centre at the University of Applied Sciences Zwickau, Germany. His teaching and research areas are social market economy and emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Asia.

1. Introduction: Chinese Investments in the Caucasus: Wither Armenia’s Moment in the Sun? Part I: Economic and Geopolitical Framework of BRI for Armenia 2. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative combines Economics and Geopolitics: Consequences for Armenia; 3. Chinese Lending Specifics and Projects in the Caucasus Region: A Look into Project-level Data; 4. The BRI: Trade Integration and Stock Market Synchronisation Part II: The Armenian Perspective on BRI as Innovation Hub 5. Spatial Administration and Legal Aspects of the BRI: Innovative Solutions for Armenia between Europe-Asia Connectivity; 6. BRI as an Innovative Platform for Technology Transfer: Opportunities for Armenia Part III: The Armenian Perspective on BRI as Cooperation Possibility with Iran 7. BRI as Chance for Regional Cooperation: Iran–Armenia Economic Relations; 8. Perspectives of Armenian-Iranian Economic Relations within the BRI Part IV: Experiences from Central Asia and the Caucasus in Comparison 9. Breaking Landlocked Barriers: Kazakhstani logistics infrastructure within the BRI; 10. How Realistic is the BRI for Kyrgyzstan and Central Asian Countries? 11. Georgian Railway’s Experiences with BRI: Advantages, Disadvantages and Digital Transformation Part V: Cooperation with the EU as an Alternative 12. Opportunities of Economic and Legal Cooperation between EU-Armenia within the BRI Framework; 13. EU’s Global Gateway Strategy and Building a Global Consensus vis-a-vis BRI; Index