(Correspondent: Wang Tianjian) On March 22^nd, 2021, Professor Xue Jun attended the international video-symposium with the theme of Researches on the Belt and Road Initiative, organized by International Institute for Regional Studies of Ritsumeikan University in Japan, and co-organized by Waseda University. In the symposium Professor Xue gave a keynote speech titled The Features and Problems of Chinese Private Enterprises' Outward Foreign Direct Investment and participated in the round-table discussion. Prof. Xue firstly expounded the features of the outward investment of private enterprises from six aspects including the ownership of enterprises, the scale, pattern, source, target country and target industry of investment, compared with state-owned enterprises. On this basis, Prof. Xue then emphatically analyzed three problems that private enterprises are facing in their outward foreign direct investment including the sustainability of investment, reverse technology spillovers and the difficulty of financing, and answered questions from the host and audience.

The symposium contained four parallel sessions, covering the fields of politics, economics, diplomacy and international relations. Aside from local Japanese scholars, there were experts and scholars from the UK, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Middle East countries who also participated in the symposium. Professor Xue Jun, as the only scholar from China's mainland invited to the symposium, took part in the second parallel session with the topic of economics.

The symposium served as the final report of the major project of Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) hosted by Ritsumeikan University, as well as the publishing seminar and exhibition for the book What does 'the Belt and Road' bring recently published in Japan in this February. The book is planned to be published in English later. Professor Xue Jun and Dr. Chang Junxiao's research on private enterprises' outward foreign direct investment has been incorporated in the book.