China will continue to strengthen cooperation with countries and regions along the Belt and Road (B&R) initiative routes in 2018 and will get all types of firms to play a major role, Gao Feng, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), told the Global Times on Thursday.
China's trade with countries and regions along the B&R routes rose 17.8 percent year-on-year to 7.4 trillion yuan ($1.17 trillion) in 2017, MOFCOM data showed.
Gao said that China will further enhance the level of trade and investment facilitation with the B&R countries and regions through bilateral and multilateral agreements in 2018.
