Ministerial meeting on China-Caribbean economic, trade cooperation to be held in Hainan

BEIJING, Sept. 9 -- A ministerial meeting of the fourth China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum will be held in south China's island province of Hainan, China's commerce ministry announced on Monday.

The meeting, scheduled to take place from Sept. 12 to 14, will focus on emerging sectors and discuss the new opportunities and patterns that green, low-carbon development and digital technologies have brought to China-Caribbean cooperation, according to ministry official Lin Feng.

To facilitate economic and trade cooperation, the ministry has worked to ascertain the cooperation needs of enterprises on both sides ahead of time, and organized a special dialogue event for Caribbean ministers and Chinese enterprises, Lin told a press conference.

By hosting the ministerial meeting in Hainan, a frontier region of China's opening-up, China also hopes to help Caribbean countries gain a better understanding of its opening-up policies, propelling deeper and high-quality cooperation between the two sides, Lin said.

Delegations from 11 Caribbean countries will attend the meeting, as will the secretariat of the Caribbean Community, and a delegation from the government of Haiti will participate as an observer, according to the ministry.

Established in 2004, the China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum has served as the highest-level economic and trade dialogue mechanism between the governments of China and Caribbean countries. Over the past 20 years, the forum has facilitated fruitful cooperation in areas such as trade, investment, human resources and health care.