PARIS - Guangzhou, the host city of the 2017 Fortune Global Forum, held a promotion seminar in Paris Friday, kicking off its first overseas roadshow for the upcoming event.

As one of the most influential forums on economic development in the world, the 2017 Fortune Global Forum will be held in December in Guangzhou, a commercial cosmopolitan with thousand-year history.

Cai Chaolin, Guangzhou vice mayor, said Guangzhou's advantage to hold the forum lies in its capacity to provide good experience for visitors, such as its world renowned gastronomy and good environment.

Most importantly, Guangzhou will create value for the guests attending the forum, as 288 enterprises among the world's top 500 enterprises have their operations in Guangzhou, added Cai.

Cai told Xinhua that Guangzhou should have a stronger influence and to have more international companies invest and develop in the city through the platform of Fortune Global Forum.

"We will let the world know more about Guangzhou, and Guangzhou can also become more integrated into the world," he said.

At the discussion panel of the seminar, heads of famous French enterprises talked about their interests in doing business and seeking new opportunities in Guangzhou as the city is an innovation hub and has its own free trade zone.

Justin Yifu Lin, a noted economist and Director of Center For New Structural Economics at Peking University, highlighted the importance of free trade in the global economy despite a decreasing trade growth worldwide in the past few years.

His opinion was echoed by Adam Lashinsky, assistant managing editor of Fortune magazine.

For the past 70 years, any significant progress made in the world economy has been based on free trade and globalization, said Lashinsky.

The upcoming forum will be an opportunity for world economic leaders to explore Guangzhou and to establish more economic cooperation with China, he said.