On the morning of October 7, 2022 (GMT+8), the opening ceremony for Seminar on Economic and Commercial Cooperation for the Dominican Republic hosted by Ministry of Commerce and organized by MOFCOM Training Base for International Business Officials (Shanghai) was held online. Fang Meng from the Foreign Economic Cooperation Office of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, Chen Wei, executive vice dean of International Education College of Shanghai Business School, Feng Shujun, chief expert and researcher of the Think Tank Center of our university, attended the opening ceremony and delivered speeches.
On May 1, 2018, China and Dominica formally established diplomatic relations. The Dominican government actively responded to the "Belt and Road" cooperation initiative and signed the “Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Building the B&R” in November of the same year. The purpose of this seminar is to promote exchanges and cooperation in the economic and trade field, open a new window of opportunity for both countries to complement advantages and develop together, and provide new development opportunities for enhancing the well-being of the people.
Fang Meng said that in recent years, the friendship and cooperation between China and Dominica has been growing. China is the second largest source of imported goods in Dominica, and Dominica is China's second largest trading partner in the Caribbean. China and Dominica have strong complementary economic advantages, many points of convergence of interests and great potential for cooperation. China's reform and opening up responds to and fits the common historical demand of the Chinese and Dominican people for development and cooperation.
Chen Wei said that the Chinese government has always adhered to a high level of opening up and actively developed international economic and trade relations. Since the B&R initiative was proposed, China has actively carried out international cooperation, optimized the business environment, promoted smooth trade flows, cultivated space and created opportunities for the development of countries, and promoted high-quality joint construction of the B&R. He hoped that the participants could use the seminar as a platform to share the advanced experience accumulated in this field with each other, discuss the bottlenecks and problems encountered, and jointly cope with the new environment and new challenges.
Feng Shujun spoke as a representative of teaching experts. He said that since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 2018, bilateral trade and investment cooperation have grown rapidly and both countries are helping each other. As an expert representative of the seminar, he will definitely live up to his mission, share and exchange valuable experience with the participants to help China-Dominican economic and trade cooperation.
The representative of the partricipants, Ms. Ailedania Volgilia Gil Tabia, an international cooperation analyst from the Dominican Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development, said that this seminar was very valuable and that she would strive to master what she had learned, develop her own vision and apply it to the corresponding field when needed, contributing to the economic development of the Dominican Republic.
The seminar will last 14 days, and a total of 47 government officials from the Dominican Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development and other departments will participate.
Written by: Zhao Zixuan
Photos by: Ni Haoran
Reviewed by: Chen Wei
