The international cooperation summit forum on the Belt and Road to be held in Beijing in May is China’s first high-level international forum featuring the Belt and Road initiative. It is of great practical meaning and far-reaching historical significance for tackling the problems facing the world and regional economy today, promoting a more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economic globalization process and fostering an open, interconnected world economy.

Trade connectivity is an important topic of this forum. During the forum, the Ministry of Commerce will host a parallel session on "Promoting Unimpeded Trade". The theme is "Deepening Economic Cooperation along the Belt and Road for Unimpeded and Efficient Trade and Win-Win Development." So far, officials and industry participants from many countries have signed on to attend this session.

China has made smooth progress and achieved early harvests when it comes to building overseas trade and economic cooperation zones, which is an important carrier of the trade and economic cooperation under the Belt and Road initiative. These zones are regarded as the "shining pearls" along the Belt and Road. Among the total of 77 cooperation zones Chinese enterprises have built in 36 countries, 56 are located in the 20 countries along the Belt and Road. These 56 zones have attracted a total investment of 18.55 billion US dollars and 1,082 tenant enterprises, generated 50.69 billion US dollars of industrial output and1.07 billion US dollars of tax revenue to the host countries, and created 177,000 jobs for the local communities. They have played a positive role in promoting the industrialization process and industrial upgrading of the countries along the routes, and in developing the bilateral commercial ties between them and China.

Going forward, we will continue to uphold the principle of making joint efforts in negotiations, implementation and sharing, promote the Silk Road spirit, leverage the respective advantages of Chinese enterprises, host country enterprises and third-party enterprises by strengthening planning and guidance, promoting strategy alignment and improving cooperation mechanism, and work together with the host countries to promote the construction of cooperation zones and to contribute to the economic and social development of the host countries. At the same time, we hope that the relevant countries could work together with the Chinese government to create a legal, policy and business environment favorable for the relevant cooperation zones.