People's Daily Online, Beijing, November 11 (Reporter Li Qiaochu) On November 7, the 2025 "Belt and Road" Trade and Investment Forum hosted by the China Chamber of International Commerce was held in Beijing. More than 400 political, business and academic representatives from 44 countries, including heads of business associations and envoys to China, attended the forum.

Ren Hongbin, President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and President of the China Chamber of International Commerce, said in his opening speech that the business community is a new force in jointly building the "Belt and Road" and hopes that the business community will be practitioners of win-win cooperation, advocates of openness and inclusiveness, and builders of interconnection. The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and the China International Chamber of Commerce will further improve the economic and trade cooperation mechanism for the joint construction of the “Belt and Road”, help enterprises improve the quality and efficiency of pragmatic cooperation, and make new and greater contributions to the high-quality development of the “Belt and Road”.

As the most extensive and largest international cooperation platform in the world, the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative has achieved a historic leap from bilateral to multilateral, and from regional to global. The countries involved in the initiative together account for more than 40% of global GDP. Data show that from January to September this year, the volume of goods trade between China and co-building countries reached 17.37 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%, accounting for 51.7% of China's total trade. Non-financial direct investment in co-building countries reached 215 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.7%. The total number of China-Europe freight trains has exceeded 110,000.

Ren Hongbin said that in recent years, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade has mobilized the power of the national trade promotion system and organized more than 1,000 groups every year to visit co-building countries in ASEAN, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and other regions. In particular, many small and medium-sized enterprises travel with the groups. Returning with a full load, I hope that all friends from the business community will continue to actively participate in the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" economic and trade cooperation, expand new space for cooperation in green development, artificial intelligence, digital economy and other fields, find more points of convergence of interests, and make the development pie of mutual benefit and win-win bigger.

The meeting also held a signing ceremony for new members of the Silk Road Business Council, promotion of the 4th China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo, national promotion of jointly built countries, sharing of Silk Road cases and special seminars.