Full Text: Xinhua President's speech on Xinhua Silk Road Information Services

Following is the full text of a speech delivered Thursday by the President of Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao at the launch ceremony of the Xinhua Silk Road Information Services:

AUTHORITATIVE INFORMATION SERVES THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE

-- Speech at the Release and Seminar of the Xinhua Silk Road Information Services

Cai Mingzhao, President of Xinhua News Agency

July 16, 2015

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear friends,

Good morning!

First, on behalf of the Xinhua News Agency, I would like to express my welcome to fellow leaders, ambassadors, scholars, experts and entrepreneurs from home and abroad attending the release and seminar of Xinhua Silk Road Information Services.

More than 2,100 years ago, Zhang Qian, an envoy of the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), visited Central Asia twice and opened up the ancient Silk Road that ran through East and West and connected Asia and Europe. It was a road of trade and business, cultural exchanges and friendly cooperation. Accompanied by the ringing bells of camel caravans, diplomatic envoys, merchants, tourists, scholars and craftsmen traveled along the route to supply each other's needs and learnt from each other through the centuries, pushing forward human civilization and progress and writing a new chapter of friendship that has been praised for thousands of years.

In the fall of 2013, President Xi Jinping raised the initiative of building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. The strategic initiative transcends time and space, draws inspiration from history, connects China with the rest of the world, and endows the Silk Road with a fresh meaning in the new era and a historical mission. This initiative fits the common needs of countries along the Belt and Road, and offers them new opportunities of mutual complementarity, opening-up and development. Countries along the Belt and Road have positively responded to and participated in the initiative, bringing about satisfactory progress. The ancient Silk Road is now shining with new vitality and splendor.

The countries along the Belt and Road cover a vast territory, with each country and region having different political systems, levels of development, laws and regulations, social customs and ethnic cultures. Keeping the flow of information convenient and smooth will be a significant basis for realizing the visions of policy coordination, facilities connectivity, trade facilitation, financial integration and people-to-people bonds. The creation and release of the Xinhua Silk Road Information Services aim to serve the Belt and Road Initiative and change the situation of incomplete information access and asymmetric information.

Through offering effective, convenient, practical and timely economic information services, the products will provide a platform for commodity trade and investment cooperation for governments and companies of countries along the Belt and Road. It will also strive to align the development of China and that of countries along the Belt and Road, allowing them to reap benefits from each other's development.

As an economic information service provider, Xinhua has accumulated rich experience and resources. In an inscription for Xinhua in 1984, late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping put forward the concept of "developing information resources and serving the construction of the four modernizations," which marked the agency's entry to the sector and made it a trailblazer and leader in the sector. For 31 years, Xinhua's economic information services have steadily expanded along with China's reform and opening up as well as the country's rapid economic growth. Currently, Xinhua offers such services to more than 20,000 institutions both at home and abroad.

The creation of Xinhua Silk Road Information Services for the Belt and Road Initiative is an important mission for Xinhua in the new era. Xinhua has carried out extensive market research for the products and organized a three-month field visit involving Xinhua reporters in the countries along the Belt and Road. Reporters from domestic branches have surveyed Chinese enterprises, and the China Economic Information Service under Xinhua has solicited opinions from envoys in China as well as Chinese and foreign businesses. It is on this basis that the framework for Xinhua Silk Road Information Services is formed.

Xinhua Silk Road Information Services is Internet-based and currently available in two language versions, Chinese and English. The products include four major categories. The first is a database including information on laws and regulations, latest policies, macroeconomic development, project information and investment risk assessment in countries along the Belt and Road. The second is credit information providing credit and risk assessment reports on countries, companies and investment projects as references for investment decisions of companies. The third is consulting and think tank service that provides clients with personalized decision-making consultations by relying on Xinhua's wide-reaching global information collecting networks and professional economic analysts, as well as authoritative cooperating partners and think tanks. The fourth is a deal making platform that provides online business negotiations and promotes business connections for investment projects in order to help clients with their specific investment projects.

Improvement of Xinhua Silk Road Information Services needs the participation and support of all users. Actually, some features of the products rolled out today reflect their ideas. We will continue to interact closely with users and make timely adjustments accordingly to offer professional, quality and practical products. In order to help users learn about, acquire and use our products, Xinhua's China Economic Information Service has sent sales managers to countries along the Belt and Road and dispatched business representatives across the nation. Their contact information will be posted on the official website of the products.

Ladies and gentlemen, as China's national news agency and one of the global wire services, Xinhua has 31 domestic branches on the Chinese mainland and 180 overseas branches. Xinhua has stationed correspondents in all countries along the Belt and Road. We are committed to conducting wide coverage on economic and social development in these countries. We hope to cooperate with media organizations and institutions in these countries, further understand each other's needs and identify our common interests. By doing so, we aim to play a better role in bridging information dissemination, commercial and trade cooperation and cultural exchanges. We will also contribute to the promotion of modern Silk Road Spirit - solidarity and mutual trust, equality and mutual benefit, inclusiveness and mutual learning, as well as win-win cooperation - and to the causes of world peace and development.

Thank you! Endi