Belt and Road Forum
Beijing is well prepared to host all the guests attending the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to be started on Sunday, a spokesperson with Beijing municipal government said ahead of the forum. The Huairou District, where the meeting venue located, has come to “Belt and Road” time zone, the spokesperson told the People’s Daily. Construction is complete at all meeting sites at the China National Convention Center, where the opening ceremony, the plenary session of a high-level meeting, as well as six parallel thematic meetings will be staged, he elaborated, adding that Beijing will provide meeting service for these events. The organizers are expected to provide catering service for a total of over 10,000 people including domestic and overseas guests, reporters and service personnel, with the maximum daily number would reach 18,000.
Arrangements for Yanqi Lake International Convention Center and Jixian hall at Yanqi Lake Conference Center, the main venues of the forum and leaders’ roundtable summit, have also been finished. A luncheon to host leaders will be arranged in Haiyan hall of Yanqi Hotel as well. A news center will be set up inside the China National Convention Center, where domestic and foreign reporters could be provided with latest information, network, tea-break and other services. Environment-friendly materials were used as well when decorating the meeting sites. The adopted detachable wooden materials will be recycled after the event concludes. Mobile platforms and informationalized means will be adopted by the forum to register the attendees, inform the latest information and issue conference bulletin, in order to improve meeting efficiency and save more papers.
The event has enlisted more than 2,000 volunteers mastering multiple languages, all of whom have been trained, the spokesperson said, elaborating that of the volunteers, over 1,300 will serve the China National Convention Center, 100 will serve the forum, over 500 will be traffic ones, and about 330 will offer peripheral services. In a bid to minimize the impact of the event on citizens’ daily lives, the emergency vehicle controls, which means that vehicles are restricted based on an odd-or-even license plate rule, will not be implemented and holiday leave will not be given during the forum. Beijing’s municipal government, while preparing for the meeting, will also improve the management of the city in infrastructural maintenance, municipal environment administration as well as prevention and control of air pollution.
The “Belt and Road” initiative proposed by China in 2013 consists of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. It aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along, and beyond, the ancient Silk Road trade routes (Source: People’s Daily).
