At the 2022 edition of the World Canal Cities Forum, guests from various countries spoke highly of the province’s high-level experience in promoting the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt and National Cultural Park, and at the same time gathered wisdom and strength by making suggestions for the future development of the World Canal.
With the theme of "Canal City Heritage Conservation and Sustainable Development", the forum is divided into opening ceremony, keynote speeches and formation of initiatives.
More than 400 guests, including representatives of canal cities at home and abroad, experts and scholars in canal protection research, communicated online and offline to share the development experience and work cases of canal cities.
Participants spoke highly of Jiangsu's progress in cultural heritage protection, cultural value promotion, ecological protection and restoration, and environmental construction along the Grand Canal.
Jiangsu is the province with the largest number of World Heritage Sites on the Grand Canal.
Rafael Zelberto, Foreign Expert of China Foreign Languages Publishing House
Shan Jixiang, President of the Palace Museum, president of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics
The guests also exchanged views and shared experiences on topics such as cultural relics protection and ecological construction and proposed methods to strengthen overall planning and further deepen international cooperation in the fields of heritage protection, cultural tourism, pollution prevention, energy conservation and environmental protection.
Paul Depra, Mayor of Breda, Netherlands
WCCO Honorary Chairman, Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
The forum also released the construction results of the digital cloud platform of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park, and held the signing ceremony of the Grand Canal cultural and tourism industry development cooperation project.
