The Global Business District Innovation Club (the Club in short) hosted the 2020 board meeting and plenary meeting online at 15:30 CET (22:30 CST) on February 2, 2021. The virtual meeting was attended by 12 member business districts from 9 countries, including Paris La Défense in France, the Chicago Loop in the USA, Marunouchi of Tokyo in Japan, and Downtown Montreal in Canada. The Club members reviewed their work from 2019 to 2020 and discussed key focuses for 2021.

Beijing CBD Administrative Committee, vice chair of the Club, joined the online meetings and voted on the budget and membership fees of the Club in the dedicated global conference hall at the CBD investment service hall of China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone.

Beijing CBD introduced the progress made for the construction of the Integrated National Demonstration Zone for Opening up the Services Sector and the China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone (collectively the "two zones"), and shared experiences in epidemic prevention and fast economic recovery. It was unanimously agreed that China has led the efforts in fighting against COVID-19 and has witnessed remarkable results of economic recovery while Beijing CBD sets an example for other members. The Club will build a platform for international exchanges and be ready to enroll more members for open communication.

In 2020, Beijing CBD became part of the International Business Service Area of China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone (BFTZ) and has narrowed the gap to be a globally leading CBD with policy benefits of the "two zones". As Beijing officially starts the building of the "two zones", Beijing CBD has achieved ten crucial results with ten successful "first" cases, for example, registration of the first local branch of a Belt and Road foreign-invested bank, issuance of the first business license with the BFTZ logo, settling of the first company conducting personal credit investigation, etc.

Thanks to the improving environment for doing business, Beijing CBD rose from the ninth place to the seventh place of the listed 21 CBDs around the world, the second in Asia and remaining the highest in China according to the 2020 Attractiveness Global Business Districts Report  released last year. The report was published by the Club and Ernst & Young, and is the only international study dedicated to the evaluation and comparison of global top CBDs.

(Note: Content source is from China Daily.)