Ningbo investment and trade symposium gets underway

Event focused on markets of Central and Eastern European countries aims to boost recovery

The opening ceremony and main forum of the 22nd China Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium will take place on Tuesday in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province.

Along with the opening ceremony, there will be the Ningbo Investment and Trade Symposium and an online fair for products made in Central and Eastern European countries, or CEEC. Those two symposiums will start on Monday.

Accompanying these activities are a series of matchmaking conferences, live broadcasts, promotional activities and launch ceremonies that will be held throughout the week.

The activities all have similar goals－to recover business ties and enhance cooperation with foreign markets after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The opening ceremony of the Zhejiang Investment and Trade Symposium will feature speeches by major officials from the Zhejiang provincial government, educational institutions and Chinese company leaders, as well as video-link speeches made by foreign officials.

Around 100 representatives are expected to attend on site and 500 representatives online. Zhejiang leaders, some ambassadors to China and foreign officials will also attend the event on site.

The event will be broadcast live online to highlight the efforts made by Ningbo in boosting economic cooperation with foreign markets, especially with the CEEC.

The Ningbo Investment and Trade Symposium will be comprised of three parts, namely, the CEEC section, the consumer goods and services expo section and the investment promotion section.

A CEEC product exhibition, which has been held for six sessions previously in Ningbo, will be held online for the first time this year.

According to the organizer, there will be nearly 500 exhibitors from the CEEC and more than 2,000 domestic purchasers participating online, covering eight product categories such as food and beverages, household furnishings, cosmetics and personal care products.

After the online exhibition, it will be kept as a permanent online platform to serve long-term needs. A matchmaking conference focusing on CEEC economic and trade cooperation and live broadcasts to display products will also be held.

At the consumption expo section, the city government has customized a special page on the Alibaba's website and organized more than 1,000 exhibitors to showcase their products there.

The action is aimed to help local enterprises to find purchasers in the global market. The local administration has cooperated with a group of online platforms to launch Ningbo exclusive pages.

E-commerce promotion activities to facilitate the sales of export commodities in the domestic market are also scheduled this week. Through cooperation with online platforms such as Pinduoduo, Taobao and TikTok, the local government is making efforts to promote the sales of more than 10-million-yuan ($1.4 million) in products.

According to the local government, cross-border e-commerce is one of Ningbo's strengths. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, cross-border business has been growing and overseas warehouses have played a major role.

On Thursday, a matchmaking conference on cross-border e-commerce will take place online and offline, to help the recovery of foreign trade enterprises in Ningbo.

The local government has planned a CEEC industrial park promotion conference, a signing ceremony for major projects, a matchmaking conference on the Belt and Road Initiative, and a matchmaking conference to boost the cooperation of Ningbo overseas economic zones and domestic enterprises.