The Third China (Sichuan) International Tourism Investment Conference opened in Chengdu Wednesday, with a number of government officials and representatives of Chinese and foreign enterprises attending the opening ceremony.

Sponsored by Sichuan Provincial People’s Government, the China Association of Investment and the China Council for International Investment Promotion, the conference is expected to help Sichuan further implement the spirit of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Sichuan Provincial People’s Government on promoting tourism development.

It will facilitate Sichuan’s integration with the Belt and Road construction; it aims to achieve a greater outcome, building on the client base, market response and project investment achieved in the first two sessions; it is also expected to push forward the supply-side structural reform.

The conference will highlight the exemplary and guiding role of the regional tourism development model, emerging forms of business and tourism investment projects in Sichuan.

Sichuan will release a number of its prime tourism projects awaiting outside investment on the occasion, in the hope of hosting projects with a certain level of internationalization and market influence.

The event is part of Sichuan’s efforts to raise the contribution of the tourism industry to its economy and build a major international tourist destination through major events, massive investment and big projects.

Contracts for some projects will be signed, industrial achievements will be released and a featured city will be promoted at the conference.

Participants will also engage in dialogues surrounding health tours and travel-oriented finance.

The conference, seen from its first two sessions in 2015 and 2016 respectively, has played a positive role in stabilizing economic growth, promoting restructuring, facilitating investment and expanding consumption in Sichuan.

Over 600 leading and famous enterprises as well as investors from both home and abroad attended the first two sessions, signing contracts worth 125.89 billion yuan for 57 projects.

Among the projects, forty have broken ground with total investment reaching 72.44 billion yuan; eight with a total investment of 32.27 billion yuan are being facilitated so that their construction starts as early as possible. The mean contract performance rate of the two sessions reached 84.2 percent.