On October 29, the First New Silk Road Presidential Dialogue Forum - 2018 International Joint Cooperation Summit of New Silk Road was successfully held in Beijing. The event was jointly organized by the Belt and Road Research Institute (Shenzhen) for International Cooperation and Development (BRRIICD), Guofa Beidou (Beijing) Academy of Science and Technology, Beijing Airport International Technology Research Institute and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Silk Road Economic Union. Prof. Tao Yitao, director of the China Center for Special Economic Zone Research (CCSEZR), Shenzhen University (SZU), a key research base of humanities and social science under the Ministry of Education, dean of the Belt and Road Research Institute of Shenzhen University and also dean of the Belt and Road Research Institute (Shenzhen) for International Cooperation and Development (BRRIICD), attended the conference and delivered a keynote speech. The conference was also attended by Herman Van Rompuy, former Prime Minister of Belgium and the first President of the European Council, An Yongyu, former Ambassador of China to Nigeria, Li Debiao, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to Nepal, and Simon Pierre Adovelande, Ambassador of Benin to China.
At the forum, Ambassador Herman Van Rompuy first gave a keynote speech entitled "China and the EU: Shared Commitment to an Open Global Economy". He said that China and the EU have built a mature partnership as the EU is China's largest trade partner and a major investor while China has also quickly grown to be a major investor in the EU. He also made positive remarks on China's Belt and Road Initiative and called on the EU to provide EU companies with specific cooperation opportunities under the "Belt and Road Initiative".
Professor Tao Yitao, as one of the two keynote speakers of the forum, delivered a keynote speech themed "The Significance and Value of Inclusive Development". She believed that the implementation of the "Belt and Road Initiative" is not a simple economic issue for China or countries along the Belt and Road route, but a non-economic issue - "culture and institution are more important than capital and technology”. She said, "compared with capital and technology, the institution and culture provide both the softest and hardest constraint, and also the most fundamental constraint." Therefore, she believed that the establishment of an inclusive and exercisable institution-cultural cognition system is a realistic and intelligent consideration for the implementation of the "Belt and Road Initiative", both logically and realistically.
In order to actively promote the implementation of the "Belt and Road Initiative" results, the forum also carried out the launching ceremony for the "New Silk Road International Cooperation Alliance (in preparation)" and the "Report on the Development of Africa's Special Economic Zones under the Belt and Road Initiative (Blue Book)”. As a key guest, Prof. Tao Yitao witnessed the launch of the above two ceremonies and delivered a speech at the ceremony of the "Belt and Road - African Special Economic Zone Development Report" (Blue Book)", detailing the content and significance of the blue book project.
Prof. Tao Yitao introduced that the Report on the Development of Africa's Special Economic Zones under the Belt and Road Initiative (Blue Book) is to date China’s only report that covers data collection and analysis, policy consultation, project assessment and prediction, and future development outlook under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Report presents the research content of “five areas of connectivity”, and features the sharing of China’s successful experience in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in a bid to serve national strategy and corporate investment needs, and to objectively record, analyze, and forecast China-Africa cooperation and progress of related projects..
In the future, the Report on the Development of Africa's Special Economic Zones under the Belt and Road Initiative (Blue Book) will become a distinctive blue book that combines policy consultation with academic research and that is unique in geopolitics (Africa), focused in cooperation (China-Africa cooperation), and sustainable in policy (BRI and a community of shared future for China and Africa). It aims to gives an objective, exhaustive, scientific and faithful account of every footstep that China and Africa make on the journey to co-prosperity under the BRI in the new era, and writes the new chapter of China-Africa friendship from an academic perspective.
The Report on the Development of Africa's Special Economic Zones under the Belt and Road Initiative (Blue Book) has received heightened attention and positive response from experts, scholars and entrepreneurs at the conference, especially those from African countries. It is widely believed that the planning of this Blue Book itself is the practice of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s spirit of the China-Africa Forum and its publishing will have a far-reaching impact on the establishment of closer China-Africa partnership in a new era and promoting the common development and prosperity of China and Africa under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
Themed after culture, this forum intends to explore and implement potential projects through dialogue, in a bid to build international brands of China, power Chinese enterprises to go global and attract foreign enterprises to China, implement the "Belt and Road Initiative" and work hard to build a community of a shared future for mankind.
