Ningbo, an international harbor city, has been named among the new first-tier cities for four years on end. This June the city will stand in the spotlight to convey the beauty of the East to the world. From June 8 to 12, the 1st China-CEEC Expo & International Consumer Goods Fair will be kicked off in Ningbo.

This is a grand feast for the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Countries) and Ningbo. For five years, the China-CEEC Investment and Trade Expo has been an ideal place for customers to buy all kinds of CEEC products such as Polish milk, Albanian honey, Croatian truffle paste, etc. Zhejiang locals can buy more than 3,000 kinds of CEEC products at home. Transactions of Polish honey and Czech crystals that worth tens of millions of yuan are made in the exhibitions. Sixty tons of Polish milk can be consumed by Ningbo in a month. Fruit juice of Serbia, ham of Hungary, the timber of Latvia...products that are not in popular demand have been shipped from Ningbo to all over China. 

The circle of international friends of Ningbo keeps expanding

In the last five years, Ningbo has established friendship ties with twenty-one cities of sixteen countries, achieving full coverage of sisterhood cities of the CEEC. Thus far, Ningbo has secured the national record in the number of sisterhood cities.

Under this background, the education of Ningbo is going global and entering the CEECs, introducing the “wisdom of Ningbo” to the world. The overseas campus of Ningbo Foreign Affairs School was officially settled in Romania, which has set a precedent for the secondary vocational education of China to open an overseas campus. Institutes of higher education of Ningbo have also joined hands with seventy-eight schools of the CEECs to launch more than a hundred education cooperation programs.

Looking back at the past 5 years: Ningbo joins hands with CEEC Expos

2015

The China-CEEC Investment and Trade Expo was opened to visitors. The expo was attended by 201 enterprises and more than 360 exhibitors from sixteen Central and Eastern European countries, attracting more than 1,200 domestic professional purchasers to negotiate for business.

2016

More than 240 investment and cooperation projects were unveiled in the 2nd China-CEEC Investment and Trade Expo, which covered such fields as agriculture, energy resources, infrastructure, information technology, chemicals, medicine and the service. Both sides signed twenty-eight cooperation projects with a total amount of nearly 350 million USD. On the China (Ningbo)-CEEC Education Cooperation Exchange Conference, both sides signed eighteen education cooperation projects.

2017

The 1st China-CEEC Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone was established in Ningbo. Two national alliances -- the BRI Alliance for Industry and Education Collaboration and the Alliance of Silk Road Business Schools were established

2018

In June 2018, the nation's first “16+1” Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Zone was unveiled officially, which was aimed to become in three years a top destination for introducing CEEC products into China, the two-way investment cooperation between China and the CEECs and the cultural exchange between China and CEEC.

During the 4th China-CEEC Investment Cooperation Conference, Ningbo signed 180 major investment projects with a total worth of 230 billion yuan.

2019

In March, approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council, the China-CEEC Investment and Trade Expo was elevated to the national level and was officially renamed as China-CEEC Expo & International Consumer Goods Fair. The first event will be held in Ningbo from June 8 to 12.

(Executive Editor: Yongliu He)