The way the Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) sees it, China's Belt and Road Initiative will connect and stimulate economic activity in more than 65 countries and have a huge global impact if it lives up to its billing.

As incomes rise for Asia's middle classes and discretionary spending increases, the London-based bank reasons, demand for both low-cost value-added manufacturing goods as well as higher-end items are sure rise.

Expanding trade corridors - both physically and digitally - will make it easier for large multinationals as well as SMEs and young entrepreneurs to reach new consumers and markets.

What is the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI as it is often called? It is a long-term, geographically diverse plan to connect cities in countries along two primary trade routes.

First, there is the Silk Road Economic Belt that recreates the ancient land-based trading routes that linked Europe and the Middle East to China through Central Asia.

Then there is the modern-day Maritime Silk Road is a sea-based route to the south that connects China, South East Asia, India and Africa. Each will create three economic corridors, and major infrastructure projects are already underway to support the initiative.

One of the corridors along the maritime Silk Road, for instance, is the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which joins China and South Asia. Historically, travelling from Dhaka, Bangladesh to the South, even just 70 or 100 kilometres, has taken as much as 15 hours.

Work began in August 2016 on the Padma Bridge in Bangladesh, which will connect Dhaka with the 21 districts in southern Bangladesh - helping reduce travel time. This kind of improvement and further development along the Belt and Road will increase productivity and efficiency in the supply chain, making trade easier between Asia, Europe and Africa.

According to Peter Wong, deputy chairman and chief executive for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the initiative is more than just a conceptual framework; it is a well-planned, well thought-out scheme with long-term goals. In addition to expanding the scope of traditional trade, new trade services and cross-border e-commerce solutions are likely to emerge.

As a result, China estimates that opening corridors and growing digital economies will put annual trade along the Belt and Road over US$2.5 trillion in the next decade, up from about $1 trillion in 2015.

The concept of Belt and Road was first proposed in 2013 by President Xi Jinping. At the Belt and Road Forum held in 2017, China showcased major infrastructure projects to advance its ambitious initiative.

But the emerging political backdrop was one of growing uncertainty. The new US Trump administration was reversing past policies designed to increase global economic integration, said the HSBC article posted on the Internet.

The UK was negotiating a new relationship with its continental partners in the EU. "Elections in several countries have marked a political shift from the old order of left versus right to a new order of nationalist versus internationalist," said HSBC.

And as policymakers and negotiators wrestled with new terms of engagement, trade was evolving too. Digital innovations, plus advances in logistics, were creating opportunities by opening new markets for businesses and challenging deeply-entrenched operating models, it said.

While rapid increases in the complexity of global supply chains may have peaked, what one was seeing was a growing interest in inter- and intra-regional trade. China's role in driving these flows was increasingly important, and nowhere is this role more visible than through the Belt and Road Initiative.

By investing in rail, ports and power plants along centuries-old silk routes, China sought to stimulate cross-border trade. This wasn't just trade with China's neighbours, but with regions as far afield as Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The commercial benefits of this initiative are already becoming apparent. In the first nine months of 2016 alone, Chinese companies signed 4,000 engineering contracts under the BRI umbrella, with a combined value of nearly $70 billion.

Today these projects require construction materials, heavy machinery and engineering services. Tomorrow, the completion of new infrastructure will simplify supply chains, accelerate physical trade and push down the cost of doing business.

Companies will adapt their manufacturing and distribution strategies to capitalise on these new opportunities, with the result that the volume of trade will grow.

Indeed, China anticipates its trade with countries along the land "belt" and marine "road" will surpass $2.5 trillion annually in the next decade. One example of a project contributing to this growth is the China-Europe freight rail service, which has run over 3,500 trains linking 27 Chinese cities to 11 European countries since it launched in 2011.

Belt and Road will also redefine trade from being primarily about the movement of goods to include the provision of services, from consulting to e-retailing. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak joined Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, to unveil details about a Digital Free Trade Zone in Malaysia.

The initiative comprises both physical e-fulfilment and satellite services hubs as well as a virtual e-services platform, aiming to boost SME innovation and the trade of tangible and intangible products.

These are early steps in what will be a multi-decade journey to realise BRI's potential. China undoubtedly stands to benefit from this, but so do its Asian neighbours and trading partners further afield.

As emerging markets continue to develop and become consumer-driven economies, their expanding middle classes will demand a greater choice of goods as well as services like healthcare, education and travel.

"We forecast that about three billion people in today's emerging markets will join the middle classes by 2030, a social change that will pull the centre of gravity of human consumption towards Asia," said HSBC.

Preparing for this growth, China has pledged to help Laos build a $6 billion railway linking Vientiane to China's southern Yunnan province by 2020. Meanwhile a 7,000-kilometre Singapore-Kunming rail link is taking shape, and Beijing has won the contract to build Indonesia's first high-speed rail link - a $5.1 billion, 150-kilometre project connecting Jakarta to Bandung, Indonesia's third city.

As well as promising to make the movement of people faster and cheaper, this infrastructure will help businesses too. Perishable foods, from New Zealand and Australian lamb to Filipino fruit, will be able to reach markets in Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East by land through China, potentially shaving precious time off their journey. Once China Electric Power Equipment and Technology completes a new grid in Egypt, 16 million Egyptian homes will have access to the reliable power they need to be part of the digital economy.

In promoting Belt and Road, the Chinese government has stated that it "will facilitate a number of major project and cooperation agreements" but that "China does not intend to monopolise all the benefits, or even take the lion's share of the benefits".

The goal is to "work with partner countries to make the pie bigger and divide it equitably".