The Sixth China-CEEC Local Leaders' Meeting is scheduled for Oct 15 to 17 in Yantai, East China's Shandong province. [Photo/Iqilu News]

The Sixth China-CEEC Local Leaders' Meeting is scheduled for Oct 15 to 17 in Yantai, East China's Shandong province. The meeting will focus on the future-oriented cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC) at the local level, aiming to advance cooperation between them.

Shandong is at the intersection of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the economic cooperation center of Northeast Asia, while the CEEC is a crucial region for the westward extension of the BRI. It will serve as a link between the active East Asian economic circle and the developed Western European economies. Over the past decade, Shandong has actively integrated into China-CEEC cooperation, continuously expanding and enhancing friendly relations with local governments in the CEEC region, and proactively serving the overall national opening-up strategy.

The CEEC region has become an important part of Shandong's high-level open economy, and statistics reveal the explosive growth in trade between the two. By the end of 2013, total import and export volume between these regions was $2.97 billion and 10 years later, jumped 186 percent to 51.55 billion yuan ($7.29 billion).

In the past sessions of the China-CEEC Local Leaders' Meeting, cooperation achievements were solidified through initiatives, signing of memorandums of understanding, and issuance of consensus documents.

During this meeting, Shandong province will officially sign friendly cooperation agreements with Pest county in Hungary, and Jinan city will sign a sister-city cooperation agreement with Novi Sad, Serbia. The ties between Shandong and CEEC will continue to strengthen and expand outward.