China News Service, Hangzhou, December 18 (Bao Mengni) On December 18, the Zhejiang Province “Belt and Road” think tank academic seminar was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Many experts and scholars discussed new opportunities and new trends in jointly building the “Belt and Road”.

Event site. Photo by Bao Mengni

Zhejiang is an active participant and beneficiary of the Belt and Road Initiative. Chen Jianzhong, Party Secretary and Chairman of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, pointed out that from 2013 to 2024, the contribution of countries co-building the "Belt and Road" to Zhejiang's trade increased by 25 percentage points. In 2024, the "Belt and Road" countries will invest in more than 2,400 projects in Zhejiang, a year-on-year increase of more than 20%; Zhejiang will invest in more than 860 overseas companies in the "Belt and Road" countries, a year-on-year increase of more than 30%, and two-way investment will expand.

He pointed out that the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" is facing a new situation, and many international trade agreements have upgraded standard rules, posing challenges to the compliance capabilities of Chinese companies. He suggested that while Chinese companies are deploying global R&D, production and marketing networks, they should pay attention to adapting to the host country's legal and technical standards, especially strengthening intellectual property protection and integrating into the local market.

At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial revolution represented by artificial intelligence are becoming the key link between China and foreign countries for common prosperity, and also place digital governance in an increasingly important position.

Zhang Xiao, deputy director of the China Internet Network Information Center and a member of the expert group of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum, believes that attention should be paid to promoting mutual recognition of digital rules among countries jointly building the "Belt and Road", such as whitelists for cross-border data flows, digital trade facilitation rules, etc.

At the scene, many experts said that the world currently lacks a unified governance mechanism and consensus. Qu Fengjie, a researcher at the Institute of Foreign Economics of the China Academy of Macroeconomics and a member of the 50-member Forum on Cross-border Finance, believes that one of the short-term directions and priorities of the multilateral international coordination mechanism is to rely on the Secretariat of the "Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum to promote the construction of the cooperation mechanism and systematically design the structure of the Secretariat to make it an entity that promotes the entire construction. In addition, it is recommended that the cooperation documents that have been formed between governments, mainly cooperation memorandums, be transformed into more pragmatic cooperation plans, cooperation agreements, etc., to improve their binding force and degree of implementation.

Talking about the focus of future trends, Li Jun, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and President of the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Planning Institute, said that we should focus on themes such as "soft connectivity" of rules and standards, "strong engines" of technological innovation, "new cooperation" for green and low carbon, and "new tracks" of the digital economy. "We should actively study the new paradigm of 'Belt and Road' cooperation driven by artificial intelligence, so that artificial intelligence can become the 'universal language' for jointly building the 'Belt and Road'." (End)