Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao called on attendees to accelerate the building of a China-Europe sea-land express line, expand trade and promote investment facilitation at Monday’s opening ceremony of the fourth High-Level Think Tanks Symposium of China and Central and Eastern European Countries.

The symposium, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was attended by about 300 researchers, officials and journalists from China and 16 CEE nations.

Wang also said new growth drivers should be developed in areas such as small and medium-sized enterprises, industrial parks and exchanges of local governments. “We would like to see CEE nations share the benefits of China’s development,” he said.

In the first nine months, China-CEEC trade volume hit $49 billion, an increase of 14 percent compared with the same period last year, the vice-minister said. As of October, China’s accumulative investments in the region reached $9 billion. In the sixth Meeting of Heads of Government of China and CEEC in Budapest, Hungary, China and the 16 CEE nations signed 40 agreements to promote cooperation in diverse fields such as finance, he said.

China-CEEC cooperation is a cross-region platform, born against the backdrop of rising globalization, Wang added, and will be beneficial to participating countries and China-Europe cooperation.