Global Times: Silk Road Maritime Forum kicks off in Xiamen with focus on shared growth, open cooperation

The 8th Silk Road Maritime International Cooperation Forum opened in the coastal city of Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province on Tuesday. Domestic and foreign officials and industry insiders agreed that in the face of multiple challenges including geopolitical risks and the green transition, all parties in the shipping industry should strengthen connectivity and open cooperation, while actively embracing the valuable certainty and development opportunities that the Chinese market brings to the world.

The forum, held under the theme of "A new chapter of the Silk Road Maritime for shared growth: higher-standard open cooperation in ports, shipping and trade," brings together more than 1,800 representatives from 19 countries and regions to discuss deeper cooperation in ports, shipping, logistics, trade, finance and technology.

At the opening ceremony, speakers discussed topics ranging from global supply chains and maritime connectivity to port development and trade, highlighting the importance of international cooperation as global trade faces mounting headwinds — from trade tensions to supply chain fragmentation.

Gu Jinshan, president of the China Ports and Harbours Association, said that China's port industry has demonstrated strong commitment to serving the real economy and promoting coordinated development across ports, shipping, and trade in recent years. It has achieved substantial results and laid a solid waterborne transport foundation for China's high-level opening-up and steady economic growth.

Ren Weimin, director of the Transport Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, stressed the need to enhance the resilience of maritime connectivity in the Asia-Pacific region and safeguard supply chain stability, to guard against the effects of geopolitical crises and climate change on the global maritime transport system.

Zhang Ruosi, a counselor at the Trade in Services and Investment Division of the World Trade Organization, analyzed the new challenges that trade fragmentation poses to shipping, emphasizing that open and facilitative trade policies, together with stronger shipping connectivity, are effective tools for addressing supply chain fragmentation.

Amid rising geopolitical uncertainty, which has increased concerns over the security of major maritime routes and longer transport times, logistics costs and route-planning risks, participants agreed that the development of Silk Road Maritime must focus not only on efficiency, but also on resilience.

A major highlight of the forum was the official launch of the Silk Road Maritime Arctic route meteorological routing service, jointly developed by the China Meteorological Administration and the Silk Road Maritime Association. The service uses Fengyun meteorological satellites to build an Arctic sea-ice observation network and combines numerical forecasting with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to provide 15-day daily sea-ice forecasts and polar cyclone monitoring, offering decision support for safe navigation in polar waters, according to the organizers.

Chen Zhiping, chairperson of the Fujian Provincial Port Group Co, which is the forum's organizer, told the Global Times that the company has a partnership with the Xiamen meteorological bureau to develop an AI-powered Maritime Silk Road port meteorological risk intelligent agent. The system provides a centralized display of meteorological risks for 58 Chinese and foreign ports, integrating key information such as risk levels, distances from the centers of typhoons, and whether a port is open or closed to shipping.

Chen added that the group will continue to improve the intellige...