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Boao Forum for Asia Opens Island Province to Outside
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2004-4-22 11:44:42
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The annual meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), due to open soon in Boao, a scenic town in southernmost China's Hainan Province, has played a big role in promoting local economic development, especially in tourism and use of overseas investment.
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During the past two years, annual arrivals of domestic and overseas tourists in Boao exceeded two million, giving impetus to the development of catering, entertainment, finance, and telecommunications in the town and local cities.
Increasing job opportunities are offered in the city of Qionghai, greatly encouraging the inflow of labor to urban construction jobs and thus bringing a big change to the city.
Qionghai benefits more from the forum, which helped the city actually use 12.68 million US dollars of overseas investment in 2003, a 25.5 percent increase from a year earlier.
As from 2001, Hainan has permitted visa-exempt entry of group tourists from 21 countries and has allowed people from 160 countries and regions to obtain visas on arrival in the island.
The simplified visa procedures have opened the island province to the outside world tremendously.
In 2003, the province reported a 9.3 billion yuan (1.12 billion US dollars) in business turnover by accommodating 12.34 million domestic and overseas visitors.
The 3rd Annual Conference of BFA is due to open on April 24-25,under the theme of "Asia seeks common success: an Asia that opens up to the world."
Topics high on the agenda include Asia's economic integration, monetary and financial cooperation in Asia, manufacturing development in Asia, as well as Asia's energy security and cooperation.
The motto designed by the China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development, has been adopted by the BFA Council as its long-standing theme and thus key topics of concern may vary in different years but can only serve as sub-themes of the BFA annual conference.
With Boao, a tiny serene port in the east coast of Hainan, as the permanent venue, BFA is an non-governmental, non-profitable open international conference organization launched in 2001.
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