At the recent China-Arab States Health Cooperation Forum 2015, in the city of Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, on Sept 11, one prominent result was the Yinchuan Declaration, which praised the benefits of China-Arab health cooperation and called for greater cooperation in the future.

A minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, Li Bin, who took part in the forum, addressed the gathering by saying that Sino-Arab cooperation will move closer because of China’s “Belt and Road” strategy and this forum is an important part of that. Li said that both parties have good cooperation prospects in traditional medicine, contagious disease prevention and control and medical education and added, “China is carrying out medical and healthcare reforms and is willing to share its experiences with Arab countries.”

The purpose of the Yinchuan Declaration is to increase Sino-Arab health cooperation in medical institutions, for example by establishing a health cooperation union, increasing medical staff exchanges, technological cooperation, information exchanges on infectious and non-infectious disease prevention and control and in global health affairs.

This year, the forum’s theme was “Stronger medical technical cooperation and developing the health industry”, and there were four meetings on infectious and non-infectious disease prevention and control, academic exchanges on traditional medicine, and an international ophthalmology summit as well as a Sino-Arab health industry exhibition.

The forum was organized by the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the Ningxia government, and secretariat of the League of Arab States and it pulled in 400 representatives from 16 Arab countries and Chinese departments, with Ma Xiaowei, vice-minister of the Commission, hosting.