The Leading Sports Nation Building Forum and China-ASEAN Sports Tourism Carnival opens in Guilin on Dec 12. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Leading Sports Nation Building Forum and China-ASEAN Sports Tourism Carnival opened in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Dec 12, gathering hundreds of representatives from the government, academic, sports, and economic fields to discuss sports development.

In September 2019, the State Council released the Outline for Building a Leading Sports Nation, fully reflecting the importance of sports development and detailing important arrangements to promote the building of a strong sports country.

Sponsored by people.cn, the Guangxi Sports Bureau, and the Guilin government, the events aimed to build a bridge of communication between the central ministries and commissions with local governments to learn, discuss, and conduct exchanges, with the goal of bolstering sports development in the public and throughout the country.

Zhao Leqin, Party secretary of Guilin, said at the opening ceremony that Guilin has promoted the deep integration of sports with ecology, culture, and tourism.

"With the theme of promoting high-quality economic development with building a leading sports nation, the event will certainly push forward the development of national fitness and national health by holding related forums, sports tourism experiences and project promotion, as well as a number of sports competitions," added Zhao.

Guangxi has made significant progress in promoting sports as a number of international sports events have settled in Guangxi, such as the Tour of Guangxi and the China Cup International Football Championship. According to Li Ze, director of the Guangxi Sports Bureau, Guangxi will adhere to innovative development to accelerate the construction of a strong sports region and a national sports tourism demonstration area.