South China's Hainan province will host a number of sideline forums with a Hainan theme during the 2021 Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, which starts today, to seek closer integration of Belt and Road Initiative development with construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port, said Wang Sheng, director of the CPC Hainan Provincial Committee's Foreign Affairs Office, at a news conference held in Haikou on Thursday.

Officials and experts at The Free Trade Ports: The Global Trend, one of the sub-forums, will give their insights on how Hainan Free Trade Port can develop itself into a new highland of China's open economy through integrated institutional innovations, benchmarking the world's highest level of opening-up and learning from international experience.

Participants at the China-ASEAN Governors and Mayors Dialogue will discuss how local governments in both China and ASEAN countries can enhance joint COVID-19 response and strengthen public health capacity building, and how will they take advantage of the construction of Hainan FTP to enhance business cooperation and accelerate full recovery of the regional economy.

They also will talk about timely efforts to be made to seize the opportunity presented by the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to unlock trade, promote investment, and boost deeper integration of the industrial, supply and value chains.

The sub-forums also will discuss topics like sustainable development of rural areas and island economies along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

In its 20th edition this year, The 2021 Boao Forum for Asia annual conference has the theme, "A World in Change: Join Hands to Strengthen Global Governance and Advance Belt and Road Cooperation", according to the forum's official website.

Official statistics show 4,128 people have signed up for the four-day conference, including over 80 Chinese officials, some 60 foreign diplomats in China, and over 130 entrepreneurs from China and abroad. Over 2,000 people are expected to participate in the conference offline.