Chinese President Xi Jinping called on local officials to further open up and take a more proactive role in promoting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in South and Southeast Asia, after concluding his first overseas trip of 2020 to Myanmar.

Xi said Yunnan, the remote southwest province that borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, needs to take a more proactive role in integrating itself into the development of the whole nation, and take a more active part in pushing for regional economic and cultural connectivity.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the comments at a meeting with local officials in Kunming during his last-day visit to the southwest province on Tuesday.

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All you need to know about Xi's inspection tour in Yunnan

He arrived at the China-Myanmar border city Tengchong on Sunday (January 19) right after he finished a two-day visit to Nay Pyi Taw, during which the two countries made "new and important" consensus on promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

Under the agreement, the two sides vowed to speed up the construction of the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone, the New Yangon City, the China-Myanmar Border Economic Cooperation Zone and to build infrastructure including roads, railways, electric power and energy in the areas, Chinese Foreign Minister also State Councilor Wang Yi told reporters after the president's trip.

Xi told Yunnan officials to speed up building economic corridors with neighboring countries.

He said: "Yunnan should take a more proactive role in serving the country's major development strategy and better integrate into the plan, and it should speed up the building of economic corridors with neighboring countries with further opening-up."

He also called on local officials to strengthen cultural and people-to-people exchanges with neighboring countries.

Yunnan is China's major gateway to South and Southeast Asia. In 2018, the trade volume between Yunnan and ASEAN countries accounted for 46.1 percent of the province's total foreign trade (197.3 billion yuan, or about 29.22 billion U.S. dollars), according to the province's official data.

Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand are major trading partners of Yunnan within ASEAN.

Xi also asked local authorities to battle against trans-border crimes and combat drug and human trafficking and illegal gambling in a bid to ensure border safety and security.