From May 18 to early June 2025, President Xu Shunwu of the Italian Innovation Center was invited to participate in a series of international exchange activities successively held by Shanghai Yangpu Binjiang and university think tanks. Representatives from politics, business, academia and other circles of RCEP member states and countries along the "Belt and Road" explored new paths for urban governance innovation and cross-cultural cooperation in various forms, injecting new momentum into regional economic and trade development.

At the "Yangpu Tour Theme Day for Friends from Belt and Road Countries" event hosted by the Shanghai Overseas Returned Scholars Association, nearly 40 international friends from more than 20 countries visited Yangpu Binjiang on the spot. Esther Ang, Director of the RCEP Centre - the first overseas RCEP service center settled in China - shared, "From building the China-ASEAN Expo platform to creating an 'invisible dock' for enterprises going global, we have always been committed to being a 'super connector' for regional economic and trade cooperation." The center has currently provided full-process services for cross-border enterprises from ODI declaration to localized operation, and is now collaborating with Yangpu to build an RCEP enterprise ecosystem.

Chen Anjie, Former Secretary of the Yangpu District Committee, decoded the urban "transformation code from rust belt to show belt" on site. Taking the Shanghai People's City Practice Exhibition Hall and industrial heritage activation cases as samples, he demonstrated the "Chinese solution" for urban governance. The entrepreneurship stories told by youth representatives from Mozambique, Singapore and other countries confirmed the global attractiveness of this innovative hotbed.

The event featured a special cultural performance titled "Belt and Road · Symphonic Poem of Civilizations," which presented the fruitful results of dialogue between Eastern and Western civilizations through five cultural integration segments, including the silk and bamboo music piece China Greets Guests with Etiquette. Sha Hailin, President of the Shanghai Public Relations Association, emphasized, "From intangible heritage experiences to riverside walks, people-to-people diplomacy is weaving emotional bonds for the Belt and Road Initiative."

This cross-cultural resonance continued at the "Hujiang International Cross-Cultural Exchange Forum." The University of Shanghai for Science and Technology gathered experts from China, Germany, and multiple Eurasian countries. Sinologist Marcus Hernig systematically combed through the history of Eurasian urban exchanges, highlighting the contemporary bridging role of hub cities like Shanghai and Hamburg. Ye Miaomiao, the 驻华 representative (representative to China) of Hamburg, shared practices in sister-city cooperation, while scholars from Pakistan and Kazakhstan explored opportunities for scientific research collaboration and unimpeded trade from the perspective of emerging markets.

During the series of activities, multiple parties from politics, industry, academia and research reached a consensus on high-quality co-construction of the "Belt and Road". Cai Yonglian, Vice President of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, introduced that the university has cultivated a large number of talents for countries along the route in the fields of intelligent manufacturing and others through the construction of the international landmark "Hujiang Cultural Park". The RCEP Centre announced that it would deepen cooperation with universities, business associations and chambers of commerce, focus on laying out resource docking in Southeast Asia, and help enterprises accurately explore regional markets.