Youth dDelegates, including officials, scholars and entrepreneurs from international organizations, such as UNFPA China and ASEAN-China Centre, and eight RCEP members, namely China, Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Korea, Japan and India, participated in the RCEP Youth Dialogue themed "Pooling the strength of youth, promoting regional development."

Qu Yingpu, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, said that the RCEP Youth Dialogue aims to pool the strength of young people, enhance mutual understanding and friendship, and lead them to be on the right side of history and civilization progress. ThereforeIn such a way, they can to decidedly promote the implementation of RCEP agreement, advance regional development and cultural interactions through partnership, contributing to the promotion of the community of shared future.

He also called on young people in RCEP member countries to pool their wisdom and to create an enabling environment for the region's development, boost mutual understanding among people in RCEP member states, and advance openness, cooperation and mutual benefit in the region. China Daily will work with others to build more platforms for communication, sharing, and cooperation to promote RCEP regional development and contribute to the peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and liberty for all mankind, Qu added.

Lyu Bin, president of China Oceanic Development Foundation, noted that RCEP - a 15-nation free trade pact - gave confidence to the Asian and also the whole world. As a new force of growth, the RCEP region is thrieving. "Effectively tapping into the opportunities for growth brought by the RCEP will surely further activate the potential for collaboration in various domains and make businesses in various countries better share the opportunities for development brought by the vast market," he added.

China Oceanic Development Foundation will do its best to provide build a platform, pool resources, and provide resources for young people, in hopes that they will keep up the spirits and take the opportunity to promote the high-quality development of RCEP economy.

Chi Fulin, president of the China Institute for Reform and Development, noted that the total population of those aged 15 to 44 among RCEP member countries was 920 million last year, which was 2.2 times that of Europe and North America and accountedting for 44.2% of the population within the RCEP region. "To fully unleash the dividends of RCEP and jointly build the world's largest free trade zone, it is necessary to stimulate young people's vitality, and creativity and commitment," said Chi Fulin. The first is to release the vitality and potential of young people in promoting RCEP regional economic growth, and build an RCEP capacity improvement mechanism with the improvement of the employment and entrepreneurship ability as the core. The second is to give full play to the creativity of young people in promoting RCEP regional cooperation and build an economic and trade governance platform. The third is to give full play to the role of young people as the driving force of young people in promoting people-to-people exchanges in the RCEP region, build a multi-level people-to-people exchange program for RCEP youth, cooperate in the establishment of network-based RCEP universities, and expand the scope of youth exchanges.Chi urged RCEP members to support young people in business activities, enhance their engagement in regional governance by establishing dialogue mechanisms, and promote cultural exchanges.

After the opening ceremony, a roundtable meeting was held to discuss the role of youth in fostering RCEP regional development. The meeting was presided by Zeng Qingkai, the editor-in-chief of China Daily. Li Ming, deputy director of the department of policy and planning at the China International Development Cooperation Agency, Guo Yanjun, director of the Institute of Asian Studies at China Foreign Affairs University, Chen Yibing, an Olympic champion and associate researcher at Beijing Normal University, Kong Tuan-yuen, research fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore, Chhort Chhorravuth, director and project manager of Cambodia's Angkor Social Innovation Park, Shamin Zakaria, an Indian journalist at Xinhua News Agency, Wei Xi, an editorial board member at China News Service and others were presented at the meeting.

It is necessary to put more emphasis on the role of young people, the promotion of their growth and the reliance on their strength to advance a united and equal global development partnership, Li Ming pointed out. It is also significant to realize the all-around development of youth and foster sustainable forces for long-term global development Guo Yanjun said it’s important to empower youth with digital skills, build new digital educational infrastructure for youth, and enhance the role of youth in promoting RCEP digital economy development. Zheng Haoran hoped that the UN includes the voices of youth and cooperates closely with them in the execution, planning and evaluation of SDGs. In the post-pandemic world, the RCEP platform should be utilized to strengthen cooperation in sports and promote youth exchange, and to improve the mechanism for the allocation of sports resources among member states, Chen Yibing said.

Kong Tuan-yuen said that youths play an important role in the development of RCEP as the connector in different fields and facilitating the innovation of RCEP rules. Chhort Chhorravuth suggested to provide equal education opportunity for youth, establish RCEP training center, to support youths’ innovation in theories, and to promote digital transformation of industries. Shamin Zakaria said that the improvement of skills, theories, supply chain, value chain, and business opportunities in the RCEP region inject impetus to the economy development. And the youth can make a difference during the process.

Wei Xi said that, relating their work to the concerns of youth in the RCEP region, the media organizations should continue to promote and explain the RCEP, to report how the RCEP members are achieving shared development by giving full play to the relevant policies, and to promote people-to-people exchanges of young people in RCEP region.

According to a recent survey conducted by China Daily's Generation Z Research Center, which polled 500 young people from 40 countries and regions worldwide, 90 percent of the respondents said they perceive the RCEP as "very important" or "fairly important". They considered RCEP an important catalystmotivation for the economic recovery in the post-pandemic world and the international economic and trade cooperation. The respondents said they expect the RCEP to benefit international trade cooperation and development, and they believe that the implementation of the RCEP will also benefit young people. They also considered RCEP an opportunity to learn more about the knowledge of relevant industries and other RCEP countries to be the international talents. Faced with the existing challenges and problems, the global youth expect to utilize the platform and resources to find their way to future development.

Source：China Daily