On September 10, Hong Kong, the 10th "Belt and Road Summit Forum". (Visual China)

This year's "Belt and Road" Summit Forum is themed on "Cooperation to seek change and build the future together". In his speech, Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Jiachao said that Hong Kong is the only international city that brings together "China's advantages" and "global advantages" and acts as a "dual super capability" of "super contact person" and "super value-added person". It is an ideal "Belt and Road" hub and can continue to contribute in promoting the high-quality development of the "Belt and Road" initiative.

According to Li Jiachao, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the summit forum this year, this year's event has specially added a special link to jointly build the "Belt and Road" project, and will also launch supporting investment projects such as energy, natural resources, utilities and urban development, including investment projects in the northern metropolitan area. It is expected that the total value of the agreement and transaction reached by the conference in the recent past is nearly US$1 billion.

"This is just the beginning. Business, investment and cooperation in the new decade are about to begin." Li Jiachao said that in the past 10 years, more than 120 countries and regions and more than 45,000 participants have gathered in Hong Kong to jointly promote more than 2,800 projects to jointly build the "Belt and Road" together. According to him, the SAR government signed nine memorandums of understanding with countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" on the 10th, covering cooperation in areas such as avoiding disputes, customs, anti-corruption, meteorology and promoting investment.

It is understood that Hong Kong has signed free trade agreements with 14 countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" initiative, investment agreements with about 20 economies, and comprehensive double taxation agreements with 37 jurisdictions. Li Jiachao concluded that last year, the trade volume between Hong Kong and the countries that jointly built the "Belt and Road" exceeded US$276 billion, an increase of about 80% since 2013, which is three times the average growth rate of Hong Kong's overall commodity trade during the same period.

In his speech, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sun Zhantuo, who participated in the summit forum, said that there were voices who slandered the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative as a so-called "debt trap". On the contrary, the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative is the "lifeline" of Cambodia's social and economic development. "Our roads, bridges, airports, power plants and canals are not burdens, but engines to create opportunities." Sun Zhanto also said that as an international financial and professional service hub, Hong Kong can play an indispensable role in the implementation of the "Belt and Road" cooperation projects.

Many participants also paid attention to the speech of Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Lam. He said that the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" project involves cross-border agreements and dispute handling, and international legal services are required to protect the interests of all parties and manage risks. Hong Kong's internationalized, high-level and reputable legal services and dispute resolution services are just one-stop response to the needs of the company's entire business cycle. On the 10th, Lin Dingguo signed a memorandum of cooperation on behalf of the Department of Justice and the Ministry of Law and Justice of Pakistan. This is the 6th memorandum of cooperation signed by Hong Kong and the jurisdictions of the countries in jointly building the "Belt and Road" initiative.

The Hong Kong Business Daily believes that in the face of the increasingly complex international environment, the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" has entered a new stage of development, Hong Kong must further strengthen the "two super capabilities" in the future: on the one hand, cooperate with the Mainland to maximize the function of important intersection points of the domestic and international dual circulation, help mainland enterprises to "go global" with high quality through jointly building the "Belt and Road", and at the same time guide international resources to enter the mainland market through Hong Kong; on the other hand, they will stabilize their advantages in traditional fields such as finance and trade, continuously improve their professional service capabilities, and make efforts in digital trade, green development, innovative technology and other fields to cultivate new growth points for the "Belt and Road" cooperation.

According to the Hong Kong South China Morning Post on the 11th, Fernandez, CEO of Malaysia Airlines Group, said at the Belt and Road Forum in Hong Kong on the 10th that the company showed strong interest in purchasing Chinese C919 passenger planes and "is actively negotiating on purchasing C919."