On December 10th, Xu Jianping, Director-General of the Department of Northeastern Region Revitalization of the National Development and Reform Commission(NDRC) (Office of the Leading Group for Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative) and staffs inspected the China Belt and Road Portal(hereinafter referred to as the Portal) and held a seminar. Liu Yunan, President of the State Information Center(SIC), and people in charge of the Department of Big Data Development, SIC and of the Operation Center of the Portal attended the seminar.

Staff from the Operation Center of the Portal briefly reported the basic information of the Portal website building, progress, challenges and short-term work plan at the seminar.

Xu Jianping expressed that under the management of the SIC, the Portal has obtained good progress. As an important platform to promote the construction and development of the Belt and Road Initiative, the website building has reached a key stage which needs both courage and patience. About the future development of the Portal, Xu Jianping suggested that efforts should be made to focus on five areas: first, the Portal should focus on benchmarking, highlight the key points and hot spots of promotion, and pay attention to key countries, areas and industries; second, the Portal should innovate methods of information collection and release, strengthen cooperation with authoritative websites, and explore new methods of information collection and editing with the help of domestic and foreign reporters and websites of key media; third, the Portal should focus more on increasing the number of visits by overseas users of the Portal to improve the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative in key areas abroad; fourth, the Portal should put more emphasis on the relationship between the short-term and long-term goals. While planning the long-term development goals, the Portal should focus on the specific goals of the past two or three years and concentrate on the key areas; fifth, the Portal should innovate the website operation model to adapt the new situation and requirements, strive to broaden market channels, and steadily promote the healthy development of the Portal.

At the seminar, Yuan Feng, Deputy Director-General and Tang Minglong, second-level inspector, and other staffs from the Department of Northeastern Region Revitalization, NDRC gave valuable advice and recommendations for the development of the Portal.

Liu Yunan expressed appreciation to the Department of Northeastern Region Revitalization for the guidance and support given to the Portal. He pointed out that although the Portal had made some progress, there were still shortcomings needed to be solved. In the next step, the SIC should find out the weak points, and emphasized on three tasks: to strengthen the construction of the Portal and provide better decision service for the Belt and Road Initiative; continue to improve the content of the Portal and expand the website influence at home and abroad; and to promptly establish the China Belt and Road Portal Council to provide special services for member units.