[Global Times-Global Network Reporter Guo Yuandan] On the 15th, the 2025 "Belt and Road" Customs Food Safety Cooperation Conference was held in Shanghai. Representatives from 11 countries signed the "Charter of the" Belt and Road "Customs Food Safety Cooperation Mechanism" on site and formally joined the mechanism. The number of member countries of the mechanism reached 18, making the "circle of friends" of the cooperation mechanism more and more extensive. During the meeting, a country officially proposed to join the cooperation mechanism. This "episode" demonstrated the vitality and appeal of the mechanism.

With the theme of "deepening the mechanisms of international cooperation to promote trade security and facilitation" the conference was attended by the food safety authorities of 21 countries participating in the initiative of the Belt and Road Initiative, the consulate of the Chinese embassy and representatives of international organizations.

Sun Meijun, Director of the General Administration of Customs, said in his keynote speech that the "Belt and Road" customs food safety cooperation mechanism has made progress in many aspects since its establishment in 2023. The cooperation mechanism has become more mature and stable, government supervision has become more precise and efficient, and agricultural and food products have become safer and reliable. Trade exchanges are more convenient and smooth, ensuring a safer and stable supply chain of the agricultural and food industry chain, and making positive contributions to deepening exchanges and cooperation among relevant countries and expanding economic and trade exchanges.

The meeting adopted the "Shanghai Declaration on Jointly Promoting Trade Facilitation and Sharing Food Safety", put the "Silk Road Food Safety" information platform online, and representatives from 11 countries signed the "Charter of the" Belt and Road "Customs Food Safety Cooperation Mechanism" on site, formally joining the mechanism. The number of member countries reaches 18.

¡°Shared a little story, just during the afternoon meeting, a country officially proposed an accession mechanism.¡± Zhao Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General for Customs, introduced a detail at the close of the meeting. He said in a subsequent press release, ¡°This story fully demonstrates the vitality and attractiveness of the cooperation mechanism.¡±

Hugo Siles, Bolivian Ambassador to China, said that the signing of the Charter of the belt and road initiative Customs Food Safety Cooperation Mechanism is of far-reaching significance to the country, and will effectively promote Bolivia's more stable development in the field of global food trade, especially in the fields of animal husbandry, agriculture and agricultural industrialization. "This will surely inject new impetus into the development of regional trade."

Belarusian Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food of Belarus Ivan Smilkin said at a news conference that this meeting proved the development and expansion of the cooperation mechanism, and the global food safety governance concept has been widely recognized by countries around the world for decades, and the two countries have always been committed to deepening their partnership. Belarusian and Chinese countries are real 'iron barrel brothers', always sincerely and firmly support each other. Therefore, we look forward to more countries, like Belarusian and Chinese, to join this 'food security agreement' to promote food trade.

Zhao added that food safety is a people's livelihood project, and also a people's heart project, and the international community is very concerned about the "customs food safety cooperation mechanism" is to let various foods come in, go out, and more so that consumers can eat comfortably, eat comfortably, and eat comfortably.

A "Global Times" reporter learned on the 15th that in the first nine months of this year, the food trade volume between China and countries co-building the "Belt and Road" reached 915.24 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.5%. As a deep participant in global agricultural trade, China is the world's largest importer of agricultural products. Since 2013, China's trade in imported agricultural products has continued to grow. In 2024, China imported nearly a thousand agricultural products from 138 countries jointly building the "Belt and Road", with a value of 1 trillion yuan, accounting for 65.4% of the total imported agricultural products in the same year, bringing more development opportunities to the "Belt and Road" countries.

Therefore, the important role of the "the belt and road initiative" customs food safety cooperation mechanism is more prominent. For example, by establishing a green food channel, durians from Thailand can arrive at supermarkets in China in 13 hours. Augustine Bregya, First Secretary of the Rwandan Embassy in China, said in his speech at the conference that under this mechanism, countries can strengthen food safety cooperation, including sharing the best opportunities and expertise, and further enhance capacity building, so that our food system can meet international standards and achieve common growth. "With the support of the General Administration of Customs of China, Rwanda's coffee, tea and other products have successfully entered the Chinese market and are warmly welcomed by Chinese consumers," he said.

As a partner country of the Belt and Road Initiative, South Africa joined the Belt and Road Customs Food Safety Cooperation Mechanism in 2023, and we really feel that the cooperation mechanism plays a very important role in the prevention of food security between the two countries. China is an important trade partner of South Africa, a cooperation mechanism that enables the two countries to have broader cooperation in agricultural exports.

In order to further strengthen cooperation with the "Belt and Road" countries in the field of agricultural and food safety, jointly improve food safety governance capabilities, continuously expand the scale of cross-border trade in agricultural and food products, improve the level of facilitation.In order to promote cooperation mechanism facilitation measures continuously improve, the Chinese side independently launched the acceleration of food access process under the principle of risk-controllable, prioritize the mechanism of national food access matters; establish a special linking mechanism.To the mechanism of the country concerned products, dairy products, water products, fruits and other key products, designate the special group responsible for matching, timely coordination of communication, priority resolution and other four facilitation measures.

"Since the formal establishment of the" Belt and Road "customs food safety cooperation mechanism in 2023, we have signed 197 cooperation documents on the access of agricultural and food products with relevant countries, and more than 428,000 enterprises have been approved and registered for importing agricultural and food products. During the meeting, we have signed 14 new cooperation protocols with 10 countries, resolving the new access of 15 sub-agricultural and food products to China." Zhao Zenglian said.

At the press conference, Ivan Smilikin and John Steenhorsen both shared some good news. Ivan Smilikin said, "We signed a new food export agreement with the General Administration of Customs of China-an agreement on exporting turkey meat to China." John Steenhorsen also said that a new protocol was signed with China during the meeting, and he believes that these products will soon be served on the tables of Chinese consumers.

John Stephenson also said that South African officials attended the "Belt and Road" customs food safety training course, comprehensively understood the requirements of China's imported food safety laws and regulations, closer supervisory cooperation with the General Administration of Customs, and more effectively implemented the main responsibilities of supervising South African food enterprises.

As of now, China has held the second "Belt and Road" customs food safety cooperation training course.In the future, China's customs governance capacity construction and training resources will be fully utilized, and relevant training will be held for the country's food safety supervision officials to jointly build mechanisms in demand.