PR90121

NINGBO, China, June 16, 2021 /Xinhua=KYODO JBN/--

The second China-CEEC Expo & International Consumer Goods Fair and the 23rd

China Zhejiang Investment & Trade Symposium was held from June 8 to June 11

in the eastern coastal city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, east China, according

to Zhejiang Provincial Commerce Department.

Co-organized by the country's commerce ministry and the local provincial

government, the event featured trade exhibitions, investment talks and

people-to-people exchanges. Against the global COVID-19 epidemic and economic

recession, Zhejiang and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries once

again joined hands, integrating economy with people-to-people exchanges and

giving equal emphasis to trade and investment. The two sides carried out

all-round, high-quality and multi-level cooperation.

Zhejiang, located on the southeast coast of China, has made great efforts to

build a high-level open platform represented by the China-CEEC Expo in its bid

to become a central hub in boosting bilateral cooperation.

Leveraging the bilateral cooperation mechanism, Zhejiang has been dedicated in

serving the development of the Belt and Road Initiative. A new development

pattern is taking shape as Zhejiang seeks to lift the bilateral cooperation and

local opening-up to new levels.

As China's only national-level institutional exhibition facing CEE, this year's

expo focused on building a new pattern and sharing new opportunities.

Three exhibitions were set up specifically to showcase CEE countries,

international consumer goods and imported goods, with a total area of about

200,000 square meters. More than 2,000 CEE exhibitors and over 6,000 Chinese

purchasers attended the event.

During the four-day event, more than 20 important events were held to

promote closer ties with CEE in the fields of economy, trade, science and

technology, health, business associations and so on.

The expo is not only an important joint achievement following the China-CEEC

Leaders Summit, but also a concrete action to promote the bilateral economic

cooperation, trade exchange and high-quality development between China and CEE.

Since its establishment in 2012, the cooperation mechanism between China and

CEEC has achieved fruitful results. Compared with nine years ago, the bilateral

trade volume between China and CEEC increased by nearly 85 percent, exceeding

100 billion U.S. dollars for the first time in 2020. Two-way trips have

increased nearly fourfold, and the China-Europe freight train service has

covered most CEE countries.

As a vanguard of cooperation and development between China and CEE, Zhejiang

has taken many measures to overcome the adverse effects of the epidemic, with

its economic cooperation, trade exchanges with CEEC bucking the downward trend.

In the first quarter of this year, the total trade volume between Zhejiang and

CEEC reached 3.96 billion U.S. dollars, up 42.5 percent year on year. While sea

transport is blocked and air transport capacity is limited, the China-Europe

freight train services starting from Zhejiang's Yiwu city to Europe has become

an important link connecting economic and trade exchanges between Europe and

Asia. By end-March, CEE countries had set up 514 enterprises in Zhejiang, with

contracted foreign investment of 1.1 billion U.S. dollars.

Zhejiang has also made full use of the benefits of China-CEEC cooperation

mechanism by linking it with the development of the China-CEEC economic

cooperation demonstration zone, Zhejiang pilot free trade zone and the Zhejiang

investment & trade symposium. Thus a new cooperation mechanism and the docking

of new policies with CEE countries have been established. During the expo, the

e-commerce cooperation and dialogue mechanism between China and CEEC was

launched to facilitate CEE enterprises' export to China.

In the next five years, Zhejiang will strive to import 20 billion U.S. dollars

of goods from CEE countries with two-way investment exceeding 1.5 billion U.S.

dollars. Zhejiang is expected to become a central hub of China-CEEC

cooperation, an important bridge for CEE countries to enter the Chinese world

market, and an important window to showcase China's development model to CEE

countries.

Source: Zhejiang Provincial Commerce Department