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TASHKENT, March 31-- China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) creates tremendous opportunities for cooperation, which should be seized in a timely and productive manner, an Uzbek expert has said. The BRI has a global scale and is of crucial importance in the further development of international relations, Alisher Matyakubov, vice rector of Uzbekistan's University of Journalism and Mass Communications, told Xinhua in a recent exclusive interview. "China seeks to expand the boundaries of the Belt and Road Initiative through the maximum possible number of projects implemented in partner countries, deliberately giving them the initiative of comprehending and developing investment proposals by themselves," Matyakubov said. Chinese enterprises' non-financial investments in 56 countries along the Belt and Road routes amounted to 15.64 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, up 8.9 percent year on year and accounting for 13 percent of the total outbound investment during the period, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. "Uzbekistan is very positive and was one of the first to support this initiative," the expert said, adding that the University of Journalism and Mass Communications is actively involved in the process. "We have established mutually beneficial cooperation with Renmin University of China and Communication University of China," he said, adding that they have created a mechanism for academic exchanges with these universities and are compiling textbooks together. | 
