Ulaanbaatar/MONTSAME/ From October 14 to 17, about 20 reporters from over 10 countries, including Mongolia, South Korea, Russia, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Thailand and other 'Belt and Road' countries, gathered in Hangzhou to participate in the Discover China Trip 2018, organized by China Daily, China’s leading English-language newspaper group. 

The trip, organized under the Belt and Road Initiative, ensured the reporters to enjoy on-the-ground look at Hangzhou’s advanced technologies and innovations and explored its unique traditions.

Hangzhou, city of Zhejiang province of China, is impossible to be defined with a sole description, but there are too many features that can express the city. It is the emerging technology hub, home to the e-commerce giant Alibaba, the host of the eleventh G20 Summit in 2016 and Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Area of China, picturesque nature and more...

The reporters visited Alibaba Group, one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world. Its businesses are comprised of core commerce, cloud computing, digital media and entertainment, and innovation initiatives. As of June 30, a total of 576 million consumers were calculated to be active on its platforms, including the largest Chinese mobile commerce platform-Taobao.com.

We, then, got familiarized with the Dream Town, Hangzhou Cross-border Trading Town, Binjiang Intelligence e-Valley and New H3C Group and Wensli Group of silk products.

Thanks to the visits to these organizations, we became aware of the city’s uprising development in every sector, playing an important role in international arena. Hangzhou is said taking the forefront in economic growth among Chinese cities with a rate of about 10 percent. The city has established direct business relations with over 200 countries and regions with a total import and export volume of respectively 508.5 billion yuan and 345.6 billion yuan in 2017. Hangzhou is striving to become world famous as a center of "Internet+" innovation and entrepreneurship, a city for international conferences, an important center for tourism and leisure, and an important city for the international exchange of oriental culture. It is also working to create first-class ecological environment for living, become an important international gateway and hub in the Asia-Pacific region, construct a modern system of urban governance, and formulate a new pattern of coordinated regional development as basic support.

Within the trip program, we had a sightseeing tour to West Lake, one of Hangzhou's most popular sights and UNESCO World Heritage Site, by boat and the Urban Balcony and received interesting information about city’s establishment and history at the Hangzhou City Planning Exhibition Hall.

Additionally, we enjoyed watching Constitution Archives Exhibition Hall where the first draft of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China was formulated by then-chairman Mao Zedong and it is often referred to as the West Lake Draft.

At the Xiling Seal Engraver’s Society, one of China’s most important traditional stone seal engraving associations, the reporters were fascinated with China’s traditional culture by witnessing professional’s making of a seal.  

Keeping up our discoveries, we visited the International Expo Center where the G20 Hangzhou Summit convened in 2016, and the Asian Games Stadium, which covers an area of nearly 30 hectares, with combined construction area of 229,000 square meters, at a capacity of 80,000 spectators. 

In September 2015, Hangzhou was awarded the 2022 Asian Games and will be the third Chinese city to host the Asian Games after Beijing 1990 and Guangzhou 2010. The sculptural shape of the stadium is dynamic and elegant, consisting of 28 large petal design forms and 27 smaller petal forms, so as to resemble a beautiful lotus flower blooming on the banks of the Qiantang River. To date, the main stadium has basically been completed.

Hangzhou is very modern city which is now creating a favorable environment for tourism, business and investment and healthy living and is very attractive so that every visitor surely wants to come back.