Afghanistan Triple Seven Agriculture Service Company and the management committee of Hai'an Trade and Logistics Industrial Zone sign a cooperation agreement during the promotion meeting. [Photo/WeChat account: hafbwx]

The 2020 Beijing International Trade Cooperation Promotion themed "Hai'an, Links to the world" was held in Beijing, capital city of China, on Sept 15. Two major cooperation projects were signed at the meeting.

In recent years, Hai'an has striven to seize the great opportunities created by the national development strategies such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Yangtze River economic belt and the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) integration, seeking to build a new development pattern which lays equal emphasis on both domestic and overseas markets. Its competitive industries such as textiles and garments, equipment manufacturing, construction and building materials are accelerating integration into global markets.

The city also planned and constructed a trade logistics industrial park to a high standard, a bonded logistics center, and a railway logistics base jointly built with the Shanghai railway bureau.

This year, the first international freight train traveling from the YRD region to ASEAN countries and the first Shanghai-Suzhou-Nantong freight express directly running to the Yangshan Port in Shanghai and the Ningbo Port in Zhejiang province departed from Hai'an, further enhancing the city's status as a regional traffic hub.

Wu Wei, vice mayor of Hai'an, delivered a speech at the promotion meeting and said that Hai'an is an open center with a solid industrial foundation and superior business environment. Enterprises all over the world are welcomed to invest and take root in the city.

In the first half year of 2020, Hai'an spared no effort in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic, kept the economy stable and improved people's livelihoods, achieving remarkable results. Its regional gross domestic product reached 54.4 billion yuan ($8 billion), up 3.8 percent. With a strongly growing open economy, the city's total import-export volume increased by 16.1 percent year-on-year.