The first YXE international container train travelling from China's Yiwu to Iran's Teheran as part of "The Silk Road Economic Belt" and "The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road" strategy, also known as "One Belt, One Road", departs from a container terminal in Yiwu city, east China's Zhejiang province, 28 January 2016. [Photo: ImagineChina]

A new review is suggesting the Chinese government's "Belt and Road" initiative has made progress over the past year.

Stats from countries officially involved in the Chinese program show the total volume of bilateral trade those countries and China hit 995 billion U.S. dollars last year.

That makes up around one-quarter of all of China's overall trade volume.

Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shen Danyang.

"We have established more than 50 overseas trade cooperation zones with respective countries. The China-Belarus Industrial Zone, Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Zone and China-Indonesia Comprehensive Industrial Zone in particular have attained considerable and effective progress and become important media for Chinese companies to go out as groups and promote international capacity and equipment manufacturing cooperation with relevant countries."

The same review also shows Chinese companies have invested over 2 billion US dollars in "Belt and Road" countries last year, an over 40-percent increase year on year.

At the same time, around one-billion US dollars’ worth of investment from those countries has flowed into China through last year, up over 5-percent.

With the "Belt and Road" initiative making strides over this pear year, a leading Chinese credit rating agency is looking to help companies make better investment decisions when it comes to infrastructure.

Dagong International has established a global infrastructure credit rating system to asses which countries are more risky than others when it comes to investment in infrastructure.

The move is part of a global push by world leaders to establish a stronger credit rating system around the world.

To that end, CRI's Liu Kun spoke with former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who is among a group trying to push forward credit rating development worldwide.