The 6th Yangtze River Economic Belt Development Forum, under the guidance of the Research Center for Yangtze River Economic Belt Development of the Counselors’ Office of the State Council and the Think Tank Coalition of High-Quality Green Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, was co-hosted by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and Nantong University. Experts at the forum held discussions in theory and practice on the theme of “High-Quality Development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt towards Modernization”. In addition, fruitful research results were also released by the forum, including the coordinated and balanced development index of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, reports titled Toward A Coordinated and Balanced Development—New Initiatives for the Development of Yangtze River Economic Belt and Explorations in Jiangsu (English Version) and Research Report on the Industrial Coordination and Optimization of the Yangtze River Economic Belt under the Background of Multiple National Strategies.

Officials from governments and NTU addressed the ceremony, including Gu Xiulian, vice-chairwoman of the 10^th NPC Standing Committee who made a virtual speech，Lu Weidong, Member of the Standing Committee of the Nantong Municipal Committee and Executive Vice Mayor of the municipal government and Pu Yuzhong, Secretary of the Party Committee of Nantong University. In addition, the Key High-end Think Tank of Jiangsu Province for the Jiangsu Yangtze River Economic Belt Research Institute of Nantong University was jointly unveiled at the ceremony by another four government officials-- Xu Ming, former Standing Committee Member of Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee as well as the Deputy Governor, Zhao Jinsong, Deputy Director of the Publicity Department of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee, Zhang Xinke, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Executive Vice Chairman of the Jiangsu Provincial Federation of Philosophy and Social Sciences, and Lu Jiankang, a second-level inspector of Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission. The ceremony was presided over by President Shi Weidong of Nantong University.