Trade between Zhejiang province and countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has stayed strong in recent years.

Statistics show that bilateral trade surpassed 1 trillion yuan ($141.2 billion) last year, and Zhejiang's investment in BRI countries increased by over 70 percent compared with a year earlier. Despite the COVID-19 epidemic, bilateral trade remained stable and reached 146.84 billion yuan in the first two months of this year. Imports increased by 39.5 percent year-on-year. 

Five hundred cargo trains ran between Zhejiang and 37 BRI countries and regions. 

Zhejiang started to build six coordinated innovation zones last March to further open up to the outside world.

The Electronic World Trade Platform (e-WTP), initiated by Jack Ma, is now a major channel for the transportation of medical supplies between Zhejiang and BRI countries. 

Zhejiang held many conferences and forums last year to boost bilateral trade, such as a conference to promote BRI construction, at which 20 major projects worth $14.3 billion were signed, the first China-CEEC Expo, the sixth World Internet Conference, the fifth World Zhejiang Entrepreneurs Convention and the third International Petroleum and Natural Gas Enterprises Conference. 

Zhejiang currently has more than 2 million entrepreneurs doing business overseas. The refining-chemical integration project carried out by Hengyi Group in Brunei is the largest overseas investment made by a private Chinese company, and the China-Indonesia Qingshan Park is the largest overseas industrial park to be set up by a private Chinese company and provided jobs for nearly 40,000 locals.