Recently, the 8th Silk Road International Expo and China's East-West Cooperation, Investment and Trade Fair was successfully held in Xi'an. With the theme of "Deepening Connectivity and Expanding Economic and Trade Cooperation", this year's Silk Expo focused on the main characteristics and advantages of the "Belt and Road" countries and regions, China's provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions and urban areas in terms of external image, resource endowment, industrial potential and key projects through the establishment of five exhibition areas of international exchanges, inter-provincial cooperation, transportation and logistics, advanced manufacturing and modern energy. In order to promote intergovernmental policy communication between China and the countries and regions that jointly build the "Belt and Road", it provides an important exchange platform for investment negotiation, bulk trade and project cooperation between enterprises, which is of great practical significance for the development of all parties, including at least the following three points:

First, it has expanded a broad space for promoting the high-quality development of industrial cooperation along the Belt and Road. Promoting high-quality industrial cooperation along the Belt and Road is not only an important part of expanding the level of opening-up and achieving high-quality Belt and Road cooperation in the new era, but also an inherent requirement for building a modern industrial system and promoting high-quality development. With Pakistan as the guest of honor, this year's Silk Expo attracted more than 40 countries and regions, including Kyrgyzstan, and 73 international business associations to participate in international investment and trade exhibition activities such as regional image introduction, promotion of cooperation achievements, and roadshows of key projects. On the one hand, the exhibition takes the China-Europe Express, a new land transport channel between Asia and Europe and a high-quality platform for international logistics and transportation, as a typical case, actively advocates and jointly builds the "Belt and Road" countries to expand cooperation opportunities in multimodal transport, seaports, inland ports and other logistics industries and smart transportation industries, and signs and releases a number of agreements and initiatives on building a high-level modern international logistics system, laying an important transportation foundation for industrial cooperation; On the other hand, the exhibition also takes the city as the unit carrier, and attracts 18 international sister cities from 12 countries to participate in the roadshow of urban commodities and urban industries by holding the "International Sister Cities into Silk Expo" activity, so as to promote the inspection, exchange, signing and negotiation between the city government and enterprises. These measures are conducive to the continuous expansion of the industrial cooperation space of the "Belt and Road" and play an important role in promoting the realization of high-quality industrial cooperation.

Second, it has created favorable conditions for promoting industrial undertaking and industrial cooperation in the eastern and western regions, and ensuring the security of industrial and supply chains. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the development of the western region has made historic achievements, but due to the limitations of many factors such as historical conditions and geographical location, it is objectively still facing difficulties such as insufficient endogenous development momentum of the industry and a poor mechanism for the adjustment of the industrial structure. This has also led to the inability of the western region to meet the requirements of high-quality development in recent years in terms of undertaking industrial transfer in the eastern region, promoting the coordinated development of industries in the east and west, and ensuring the security of industrial and supply chains. Among them, a very important factor is the communication cost and information channel problem of industrial development.

As an important international economic and trade investment exhibition and industrial cooperation and negotiation platform in the western region, this year's Silk Expo has attracted hundreds of high-quality enterprises in the eastern region in key fields including integrated circuits, equipment and energy, advanced materials, biomedicine, etc., with Shandong Province and Liaoning Province as the guest provinces, and formed dozens of high-quality cooperation projects with an investment of more than 10 billion yuan. The signing and implementation of these projects will help the eastern region to alleviate the constraints of land and other production factors, give full play to the advantages of characteristic factor resources in the western region, realize the gradient and orderly transfer of domestic industries, and effectively resolve the security risks of the industrial chain and supply chain. On the other hand, through the development of cooperation and exchange forums including the government and enterprises, we will deepen the consensus on industrial transfer cooperation, promote the improvement of the benefit-sharing mechanism between the places where industries are transferred and those that are undertaken, and create positive conditions for the western region to accelerate the construction of a national strategic hinterland and a backup of key industries.

Third, it provides strong support for Shaanxi to accelerate the construction of a modern industrial system with local characteristics. Doing a good job in the Silk Expo is an important embodiment of Shaanxi's in-depth implementation of the spirit of the important speeches and important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping's previous visits to Shaanxi and the implementation of the results of the China-Central Asia Summit. Shaanxi is an important scientific research, cultural and educational center and advanced manufacturing base in China. In recent years, it has deployed an innovation chain around the industrial chain, forming a large number of characteristic industries with comparative advantages and national influence. The Third Plenary Session of the 20 th CPC Central Committee undoubtedly set higher demands on "vigorously developing new productive forces in the light of local conditions" and "speeding up the formation of a new pattern for the large-scale development of the western region."

To this end, the convening of the Silk Expo will play an important role in information communication and mutual promotion in the process of accelerating the formation of a modern industrial system with local characteristics. On the one hand, industrial promotion activities will be carried out through the display of characteristic project achievements, and the transformation and upgrading of traditional advantageous industries such as agricultural planting, energy development, food processing, and cultural tourism will be promoted in combination with emerging digital technologies, so as to better play the development efficiency of traditional advantageous industries in promoting local economic growth and driving the employment of related personnel. On the other hand, with the help of exchange opportunities with other high-quality enterprises at home and abroad to broaden the idea of industrial development, further explore and explore digital and intelligent emerging industries around Shaanxi's characteristic resource endowment, stimulate the development potential of future industries such as artificial intelligence, digital twins, quantum information, and new materials, promote the concentration of more factor resources in R&D and innovation, and accelerate the formation of a modern industrial system with Shaanxi characteristics based on the vigorous development of new productive forces. (Author: Chen Xu, Assistant Researcher, Institute of Economics, Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences)

Editor: Gao Jiahuai