While China and Central and Eastern European countries are cooperating more closely in multiple areas, they will explore new opportunities to further develop trade relations when they meet at the fourth China-CEEC Expo, which will be held in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, from May 22 to 25.

The expo not only features a diverse number of events, but serves as a platform to showcase distinctive products from Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of expanding imports from the region while promoting mutual investments between the different countries.

Since the launch of the cooperation mechanism in 2012, economic and trade relations between China and Central and Eastern European countries have developed healthily and steadily, and the foundation for pragmatic cooperation has been continuously strengthened, the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday.

Last year, the bilateral trade value reached $142.3 billion, up 6.3 percent year-on-year and a record high. Since 2012, the average annual growth rate of trade value between the two sides came in at 8.8 percent, while China's import value from Central and Eastern European countries has grown at an average annual rate of 7.4 percent. Both figures are higher than the growth rate of China's overall foreign trade value in the same period, the commerce ministry said.

"China and Central and Eastern European countries have seen increasingly close cooperation. Based on incomplete statistics, China's investment in Central and Eastern European countries has exceeded $24 billion so far," Yan Dong, vice-minister of commerce, said during a news conference in Beijing.

"In the past few years, Chinese electric vehicle companies and the upstream and downstream enterprises of the power battery sector have strengthened their investment efforts in Central and Eastern European countries, becoming a new highlight of investment cooperation between the two sides," Yan said.

Thanks to the rapid development of connectivity, Central and Eastern European countries have become important destinations of China-Europe freight train services, while the total number of direct air routes connecting China and Central and Eastern European countries now exceeds 30.

zhuwenqian@chinadaily.com.cn