On April 29, Vice-Minister of Commerce Qian Keming visited UIBE. He first visited to the Museum of UIBE History, Research Institute for Global Value Chains and China Institute for WTO Studies, and then held a meeting, which was hosted by Secretary of Party Committee Wang Ling, to communicate with the leaders and some managerial staff.

At the beginning of the meeting, Principal Shi Jianjun summarized the progress that UIBE has made since the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) and the Ministry of Education achieved the agreement on jointly reinforcing the competitiveness of Chinese universities.

UIBE has held multiple meetings to coordinate the training of personnel for the MOC since an agreement was signed in 2011. By the end of 2015, UIBE has launched 40 programs for 1,760 personnel by providing a wide-range of courses including finance, financial accounting, diplomatic negotiation, public administration, among others. In addition, 44 training programs for foreign aid have also been provided to train 1005 people coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Oceania. With delivery in multiple languages (English, French and Russian), the programs have achieved inspiring results among domestic and overseas officials.

The Collaborative Innovation Center for Chinese Enterprises Going Global, co-established by the MOC and UIBE, is steadily developing while continuously expanding its research scope. UIBE has undertaken 64 research subjects together with the MOC since the end of 2015. As the quantity of research topics keeps increasing, the quality has been improving as well. In developing think-tanks, the MOC has employed many teachers at UIBE as experts or committee members for its different departments.

Apart from UIBE teachers' proactive paticipation, the voluntary work of UIBE students plays an important role in promoting China's commerce as well. For example, many of them have served in international conferences since the agreement achieved in 2011. The School of Information Technology and Management at UIBE set up Website for China-Foreign Economic and Trade Cooperation in 2004, and has renewed the contract with the MOC in acquiring and recording the data on China's economic and trade cooperation with foreign countries since the agreement signed. Moreover, UIBE has engaged in affairs of civil servant examinations, preparing itself for the further cooperation with the MOC.

Professor Wang Zhi, President of Research Institute for Global Value Chains, reported on the construction situation of UIBE research institutes. Since the establishment of Research Institute for Global Value Chains in 2015, major leaders have been identified already; the work of inviting members for Advisory Committee and Council has been basically completed; the mechanism for cooperation and coordination with Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation has been established; a MOU has been signed with the WTO, the OECD and the Japan External Trade Organization.

In addition, the Institute has launched training programs on global value chains, a representative product that is highly praised; it has initiated project research by developing the domestic and foreign research systems simultaneously; it has acquired basic office facilities and laid out the dual pattern of working in offices and data workstation; it has established regulations and management systems in the course of construction and pilot run, and explored and practiced the policies of reforming and innovating research systems in universities. The Institute will focus its attention on four major products, which include the Global Value Chain Report, three major databases (namely database of TiVA, database of Chinese enterprses' micro-data, database of E-commerce), three types of CGE model and the summer course of global value chain, with a view to make the research professional, international and diversified.

After the brief communication with deans from other Schools, Qian Keming affirmed the work that UIBE has undertaken and appreciated the support for the MOC. He remarked that UIBE has contributed tremendously in research, major strategy research and personnel training and that the proposal of encouraging talents to take two jobs inside and outside campus is significant in improving both teachers' and students' abilities.

In addition, Qian suggested the MOC and UIBE cooperate with each other in identifying research subjects and discussing the details of research on major strategies and hot topics. The research on hot topics are featured with timeliness and professionalism and thus require the researchers to be highly sensitive and professional. The MOC plans to invite UIBE professors to participate in or to independently conduct relevant subject researches.

At the end, Qian visited Research Institute for Global Value Chains, demonstrating his emphasis on the research of global value chain, which, in Qian's view, is indispensable in trade, outbound investment and industrial restructuring, thus should represent the state of the art in international community. The MOC will lend strong support to UIBE in building a new think-tank, summarizing the experience of China's reform and opening-up, which, in turn, will lay strategic foundation for China's further opening-up.