The 2016 Annual Summary Meeting of International Training Program & 2017 Training Workshop were held in Chengdu, Sichuan Province on February 28, 2017. Over 150 representatives from the 2016 & 2017 program organizers and managers attended the meeting.
   
Ye Dongbai, Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Science and Technology, Chen Jiachang, Director General of China Science and Technology Exchange Center, and Deng Yonghui, Deputy Head of the Department of Overseas Training at State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, spoke at the meeting. Zhang Wei, Deputy Director-General of the Science & Technology Department of Sichuan Province, delivered an opening speech. Ye Dongbai analyzed the new trends and new missions of international S&T cooperation and China’s S&T diplomacy, and laid out a comprehensive and systematic plan to advance S&T cooperation with other developing countries and provide S&T training assistance to foreign countries. Chen Jiachang offered some recommendations on improving the quality of training workshops, enhancing publicity efforts and strengthening follow-up services. Officials of the Division of General Affairs and Planning, Department of International Cooperation, the Ministry of Science and Technology, made a summary report of the 2016 international training program and mapped out the 2017 work arrangement.
  
Representatives from some of the 2016 project organizers, including Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences Institute of Plant Seedling Nursery Stock, Anhui Jianghuai Horticulture Seeds Co., Ltd., China Academy of Space Technology, International Joint Research Center of Advanced Energy of Zhejiang University and China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co., Ltd., shared the outcomes and experience they obtained from the training programs. The participants exchanged views and ideas about how to improve the training workshops. China Science and Technology Exchange Center arranged a separate training about how to manage the international training programs and use the information management system.

The Ministry of Science and Technology held 55 international training workshops in 2016, and more than 1,100 experts, scholars, professionals and officials from 70 countries and regions participated in the workshops to learn badly needed technologies in such fields as agriculture & forestry, information & manufacturing, new energy, resource & environment protection and healthcare. The training workshops have been well-received in the developing world. In order to generate more benefits from the training programs and expand their international influence, the ministry has launched two overseas training programs on a pilot basis. The ministry plans to hold 67 training workshops in 2017. To dovetail with the “Belt and Road” initiative, more workshops would be opened at the “Belt and Road” countries; greater efforts would be made to strengthen performance evaluation and improve quality of the training programs; figure out innovative manners to implement the overseas training programs; maintain communication with foreign trainees after they complete the workshops and return home; step up publicity efforts to expand the influence of China’s international training programs.