On July 27, the Inauguration Ceremony of the Belt and Road International Lawyers Association (BRILA) Hangzhou Center was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Mr. XIONG Xuanguo, Vice Minister of Justice sent a congratulatory letter to the event. Mr. GAO Xingfu, Vice Governor of Zhejiang Province, Mr. KANG Yu, Secretary General of the Belt and Road International Lawyers Association, and Mr. CHEN Wei, Director General of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Justice unveiled the Hangzhou Center of BRILA. Mr. Manuel Torres Salazar, Council Member of BRILA and the chief representative of Garrigues Law Firm in Beijing, delivered an online speech.

XIONG, Vice Minister of Justice, pointed out in his letter that it’s been nine years since President XI Jinping proposed the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. As of the beginning of 2022, China has signed more than 200 cooperation documents on the joint construction of the BRI with more than 180 countries and international organizations. The BRI has become an indispensable part of the global governance system and plays an increasingly important role in promoting the prosperity of the world.

XIONG also stressed that BRILA is an international lawyers organization initiated by the All China Lawyers Association (ACLA) and registered in China. Its purpose is to provide high quality and efficient legal service support for the Belt and Road construction. The Hangzhou Center, the fifth representative office of the BRILA in China, will play a significant role in enhancing Zhejiang’s integration into the BRI, giving full play to its competitive advantage of international business environment based on the rule of law, and achieving high quality development of the economy. He hoped that the lawyers can actively use the international platform provided by BRILA to promote the innovation of global governance system and strive to build a better international order featuring justice and fairness, so as to contribute to the progress of the rule of law of the world at large.

After the Inauguration Ceremony of the BRILA Hangzhou Center, the 1^st International Legal Service Forum in Zhejiang Province was held. The forum brought together many experts, scholars and lawyers, and in-depth exchanges and discussions were made on such topics as the Belt and Road legal services, the dispute resolution mechanism within the Belt and Road cases, foreign-related intellectual property rights, the building of foreign-related legal system in China Free Trade Zone (Port), and Zhejiang’s integration into the Belt and Road construction. The forum was quite fruitful and consensuses were made among attendees.