In 2016, Hubei enterprises acheived 7.48 billion U.S.dollars in terms of new contracts with countries along the "Belt and Road", completing a turnover of 3.38 billion U.S.dollars, said the director of the Department of Commerce of Hubei Province on January 18, 2017 at a press conference.

Hubei strongly supports local enterprises going global and strengthening international production capacity cooperation. In 2016, Hubei enterprises directly invested in 25 projects of the countries along the "Belt and the Road", Qiu introduced.

In 2016, Hubei cultivated new business and economic momentum in opening up and gained good performance: the actual use of foreign investment in the province exceeded 10 billion U.S. dollars mark for the first time; the world top 500 enterprising coming to Hubei totalled 254, ranking first in central China; the Hubei Free Trade Pilot Zone has been approved.

In addition, Hubei opened eight international airlines, and the China-Europe(Wuhan) freight trains were sent out 244 times, shipping 20,000 TEUs of goods.

In 2017, Hubei will continue to promote supply-side structural reform and accelerate the construction of Hubei Free Trade Area, Qiu added. (hubei.gov.cn by Ruan Xinqi)