‍Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will attend the sixth meeting of heads of government of China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in Budapest, during his official visit to Hungary from Nov. 26-29.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of this cooperation platform between China and the 16 CEE countries, and the upcoming gathering will be held under the theme "deepening economic, trade and financial cooperation for win-win development."

The "16+1" is a mechanism first initiated by China with the goal of intensifying and expanding cooperation with 11 EU Member States — namely Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia — and five non-EU countries — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia.

Chinese Ambassador to Estonia Qu Zhe said the summit has become an indispensable platform for frequent communication between government leaders in fields including investment, transport, finance, science, education, and culture after the first "16+1" meeting was held in Warsaw, Poland in the spring of 2012.

China and CEE countries are at their best in history, stated Chinese Ambassador to Hungary Duan Jielong at a recent think tank conference highlighting the great results achieved in various fields in the past five years. 

Chinese investment in CEE countries is now over nine billion US dollars covering machinery, chemical, telecom, new energy and other industries, while CEE countries have invested 1.4 billion US dollars in China. In the first nine months of this year, their trade exceeded 49 billion US dollars, marking an increase of 14.5 percent year-on-year. China's imports from CEE countries have also risen 21.9 percent on an annual basis during the same period.

Cooperation between the two sides has expanded to infrastructure and industrial fields with a series of projects, including the Hungary-Serbia high-speed railway, the China-Serbia Friendship Bridge across the Danube in Belgrade, and highway projects in Macedonia and Montenegro.

In terms of people-to-people exchanges, the number of Chinese tourists visiting CEE countries in 2016 stood at one million, tripling from a year earlier.

The China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has further deepened the "16+1" cooperation mechanism and generated more fruitful results, said senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Liu Yunshan.

Istvan Ijgyarto, Hungarian state secretary for cultural and science diplomacy noted that "there are promising opportunities for the CEE countries and Europe in China's Belt and Road Initiative, and CEE countries recognized this historic chance and all declared their support to the initiative".

One fourth of countries along the Belt and Road network are in the central and eastern European region.

China has signed documents on cooperation under BRI framework with 13 of the 16 CEE countries, according to Zhou Xiaoyan, head of the department of European affairs with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce

As the "16+1" mechanism includes 11 EU members, there have been concerns that the framework could affect the internal cohesion of the EU, especially since the bloc is facing divisions in many areas including unbalanced economic development and different immigration policies.

However, Chinese ambassador Duan believed the mechanism has no conflict with China-EU relations.

"As Chinese President Xi Jinping puts it, we see 16+1 cooperation (as) an important gateway to incorporate the Belt and Road Initiative into the European Economic Community, a new engine to boost China-EU cooperation, and a priority platform to reinforce four major China-EU partnerships of peace, growth, reform and civilization," Duan said in an interview with Xinhua.

The "16+1" mechanism came into existence at a time the world was suffering from the global financial crisis and the euro-zone debt crisis, while the CEEC showed resilience in economic recovery. The mechanism provides a chance for CEE countries to look for a market outside Europe.

Cooperation between China and Central Eastern European countries like Hungary is complementary, said Hu Yuwei, research fellow at the Macro Research Department at China Institute of Finance and Capital Markets.

He gave infrastructure as an example. China has advantages in the design, construction and management of large projects, while typical Central and Eastern European countries like Hungary, which are still in a transitional stage with lagged-behind infrastructure, have a strong need to upgrade their infrastructure. 

If China and Central and Eastern European countries can collaborate well, both sides will benefit, Hu stressed.