It has been nine years since the first cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC), with the aim of promoting business and investment relationship between China and countries in the region.

Let us first review what the cooperation has achieved over the past nine years. Since 2012, China and CEEC have formed a comprehensive cooperation mechanism in trade, investment, infrastructure and transportation. Win-win situations in various aspects have been gradually achieved in the following fields.

Mechanism. The cooperation mechanism itself is maturing. Multiple sessions of the forum and ministerial-level meetings have been successfully held by different countries within the cooperation.

Trade. The trade volume between China and CEE countries surpassed $100 billion in 2020, an 8.4-percent year-on-year growth, which is higher than China's total export growth of 4 percent for last year.

Investment. China's investment in CEE countries reached $3.14 billion in 2020, while these countries invested $1.72 billion in China. The investments cover energy, mining, infrastructure, car parts and logistics, among others.

Infrastructure. Despite the COVID-19 impact, in 2020, China signed $5.41 billion worth of contracts with CEE countries to help local infrastructure constructions.

Transportation. Railway transportation between China and the European continent has been more frequent, with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Slovakia becoming important destinations.

Overall cooperation is another way in which China has achieved significant growth. For example, many Chinese cities, including Ningbo in east China's Zhejiang Province, have set up special cooperation zones to host projects from the cooperation and facilitate future project development.

It might be a coincidence, but while the cooperation was founded in 2012, the world was in the middle of a global crisis. Five European countries finally obtained their bailout packages in mid-2012 from the EU and the International Monetary Fund after long struggles with sovereign debt since 2009.

The same year, China initiated the China-CEEC cooperation to promote multilateral relationships and encourage closer economic ties. CEE countries are also important partners to China's Belt and Road Initiative.

While China has just concluded an investment agreement in principle with the European Union, more cooperation deals are expected with CEE countries, and we look forward to more positive messages from this summit.