A Belt and Road Forum sign in Beijing Photo: IC

Ten Chinese engineers and workers at a project in Pakistan were admitted to hospital on Friday after testing positive for coronavirus, according to Pakistani media outlet Dawn.

The ten Chinese nationals were working on a power project in Bahawalpur District, Punjab, Pakistan. According to hospital staff the patients were in a stable condition and were hospitalized for further medical observation, Dawn reported. 

According to official statistics, about 1 million Chinese employees work abroad, of whom 400,000 are engaged in various overseas projects of state-owned companies in more than 180 countries and regions, Xinhua reported.

To facilitate healthcare and medical treatment for Chinese workers abroad China has set up telemedicine systems and constructed cooperative emergency health centers in the local areas, Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday.

The first of such remote telemedicine platforms was put into operation this month and has aided over 5,000 Chinese employees working in 37 countries and regions along the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) so far, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

According to a report from Ernst & Young, China's total import and export volume reached $1.6 trillion from January to May 2020, down 7.7 percent from the previous year. The trade with Belt and Road countries reached $490.6 billion, down 4.8 percent. The decrease was 2.9 percentage points narrower than that of the overall trade volume.

China's effort to push forward infrastructure construction in the Belt and Road countries has not been affected by the pandemic, Wang said.

"The epidemic has spawned the need for cooperation in public health which gives a boost to China's Health Silk Road and Digital Silk Road projects, the intelligent and digital projects which require less contact with people," Wang said.

Considered a significant way to boost trade between China and Belt and Road countries, the China-Europe freight train has seen surging deliveries amid the coronavirus pandemic as travel bans affected much of the global air and sea transport.

In the first half of the year, the China-Europe freight train transported 3.67 million anti-epidemic items, and the total volume of goods transported reached 461,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, a year-on-year increase of 41 percent, according to data from China Railway.

"As the pandemic has brought the global economy into recession it is more important for China to push forward the Belt and Road Initiative to lift global economic confidence and stabilize global supply with increased mutual benefits," Wang said.