A book of discourses on the Belt and Road Initiative by President Xi Jinping has been published by Central Party Literature Press, with national distribution launched on Tuesday.

The book, compiled by the Communist Party of China Central Committee's institution for Party history and literature research, contains 42 discourses totaling about 130,000 words written since 2013, when Xi first proposed the initiative.

Presiding over a meeting in August that marked the fifth anniversary of his proposal, Xi said that building the Belt and Road should rely upon high-quality development and focus on major infrastructure projects and cooperation in production capacity.

More than 50 countries and international organizations have signed cooperative agreements with China for the BRI this year, with the total number of such documents exceeding 140, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The spirit of the initiative has been written into documents of international bodies including the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

"The Belt and Road has become the most popular and largest-scale platform for cooperation in the world," State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday.

Facts have proved that the BRI has brought concrete benefits to people in countries and regions involved in the initiative, and that it has contributed to promoting global cooperation and common development, he said.

"The initiative will certainly win increasing support from the international community and open up brighter and wider prospects," he added.

The second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held in China next year.