Qu Yingpu, deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, addresses the opening ceremony of the ongoing 15th Forum on Internet Media of China that runs through Saturday. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/chinadaily.com]

This year's forum will gather about 300 guests, including ministerial officials, leaders of key Internet websites, at both national and regional levels, major players in investment institutions and the Internet sector, renowned experts on the Belt and Road Initiative, industry representatives and city officials.

The forum is co-hosted by the All-China Journalists' Association and major news websites at both national and regional levels.

It is the second time China Daily website has undertaken the job, this time partnering the Zhanjiang municipal government, having first been involved with the 6th event nine years ago.

Initiated in 2001, the forum has evolved into the most high-profile and influential annual event in its field. As a developed platform for exchange and cooperation among government, industry and academia, the forum has witnessed the development of the Chinese Internet industry. Topics and contents selected by previous forums have continued to set the trends of the development of Chinese Internet media.

The host city, Zhanjiang, was a starting point of one of ancient China's earliest maritime trading routes, during the Han Dynasty (206 BC -- AD 220). It is now one of the 15 pivotal cities in the Belt and Road Initiative -- a reference to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives, transport infrastructure projects linking Asia and Europe, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013.