Source: China Daily    Published: 2015-10-9

China is increasingly present in Central and Eastern Europe. Through investments, credit for infrastructure projects and the growing number of tourists from the country, China has become more politically visible in the region.

Cooperation between China and the 16 Central and Eastern European countries, which spread from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Adriatic Sea in the south, is both bilateral and multilateral.

Bilaterally, with each country, China has agreed on projects and on possible ways to realize them. As for multilateral cooperation, it is done through the "Summit of 16+1", thanks to the vision of President Xi Jinping, who proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. Thus the Central and Eastern European countries have become important links in a chain that connects Shenyang and Harbin with Rotterdam, Hamburg and other major European ports.