“Ningbo surpasses all the other Chinese cities in terms of cooperation with central and eastern European countries.” According to the evaluation results of 17+1 cooperation released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences 17+1 Think Tank Network, Ningbo topped all the other cities.

Upon hearing the news on the afternoon of June 5, Ningbo Bureau of Commerce expressed their joy at receiving national recognition. As Ningbo is holding China-CEEC EXPO, this good news is particularly inspiring.

The report published by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences looked at the interconnectivity, economic and trade cooperation, policy coordination, people-to-people exchanges and think tank participation of different regions, which serves as a systematic and impartial assessment of the synergy between Chinese cities and 17+1 initiative.

According to the report, Ningbo is now at the forefront of cooperation with central and eastern European countries in terms of overall performance. On a scale of 1 to 100, the top 15 cities register an average score of 38.52146 in the cooperation with CEEC. The rating for Ningbo is 69.3453, and Tianjian scores 40.5675, coming second to Ningbo.  

In terms of the assessment of specific indicators, economic and trade cooperation carries the most weight because of its stabilizing and propelling role in China-CEEC cooperation, accounting for 44.1% in the total score. Ningbo is still among the highest on the list. The report stresses that as the only open city that has initiated China-CEEC demo zone in China, Ningbo is taking the lead in economic and trade cooperation with CEEC.

The trade volume between Ningbo and CEEC reached 24.36 billion yuan, representing a 23.1% increase with its contribution to China’s total rising from 4.3% to 4.5%. The import volume, in particular, more than doubled compared with 2016. The growing bilateral trade and investment manifest tremendous potential in economic and trade cooperation between Ningbo and CEEC, which also lays a solid foundation for more significant achievement in the future.

In terms of policy coordination, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences made a special mention of the 3362 frames proposed by Ningbo to promote China-CEEC cooperation. 3362 means three prime destinations, three platforms, six demo projects, and 20 key cooperation projects. The report also pointed out that 3362 provided a reliable political guarantee for all-around coordination between China-CEEC cooperation. On this ground, Ningbo still ranks first in this assessment.  

In the field of people-to-people exchanges, Ningbo has so far signed 100 cooperation projects with as many as 78 colleges from CEEC countries and has carried out “Thousand People Tour to CEEC” activity in four consecutive years. Except for Greece, Ningbo has become friendly cities with all CEEC cities.

According to the analysis of the report, the broad coverage of friendly cities and close education cooperation enable Ningbo to maintain a sound social interaction and a solid basis of public opinions with CEEC, which serve as a solid bridge for cooperation in various areas between the two parties.

(Executive Editor: Xinyu Xie)