DUNHUANG, Sept 19: China has announced to establish Belt and Road Media Cooperation Center to boost cooperation with media houses of all the countries which have signed to be part of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative last May.

Yang Zhenwu, President of People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, announced that the newspaper will establish the center to strengthen cooperation among domestic and international media along the Belt and Road route.

He made the announcement while addressing the 2017 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road in Dunhuang, Gansu on Tuesday. The yearly international forum is hosted by People’s Daily and has been organized since 2014. Over 303 representatives from media houses of 126 countries including Nepal had attended the forum. The forum is the largest media gathering organized by China.

Stating that media has a bigger role to play to promote cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, Yang said that the center will closely work with media houses along the Belt and Road route on different fronts including technological advancement to share stories of common interest and facilitate trade and development under the B&R Initiative.

Similarly, he also said that the news organization will launch an international research center, a Belt, and Road joint interview mechanism, establish a cooperation union for Belt and Road regional cooperation and set up a culture research institute in order to come up with concrete implementation plans for enhancing media cooperation.

In May, Nepal also signed an agreement with China to be part of its B&R Initiative.

Over 20 media representatives including editor-in-chief of various international media like Bloomberg News and Daily Mail had addressed the forum and they also opined that sharing stories of common interests along the Belt and Road will also help media houses to expand its audience. They pushed for strengthening digital media for effective story-telling.

 
• belt and road media cooperation center
 
• china
 
• nepal