（By Travel Silkroad, Beijing 2005-02-05）：This morning, under the sponsorship of www.travel-silkroad.com, the Western China Culture & the 2nd Travel Silkroad Symposium was held in Beijing Western Returned Scholars Association.

Scholars, experts and e-business insiders sit together again, and had an academic discussion about the development of the silkroad and the website. This comes four years later after the 1st Symposium on the Feasibility Study of Series Activities of Travel Silkroad held at Beijing Haiyi Hotel on March 30, 2001. Compared with the previous one, this symposium is deeper in level and wider in range. The overall construction of this website and its relevant sectors have taken shape. Regarding this, Peter Tu , president of the website first reflected on the work that has been done in the past four years, and introduced the total investment of the website, its major channels and services such as the History Channel, Shopping Center, Hotel Reserving Service and web construction, etc. Then he showed the attendees the VI brochure and the TV advertising film of the website. After that, the compere read out congratulation messages for this conference from academic institutions both home and broad such as China Research Association of History of Tang Dynasty, China Translation and Publishing Corporation, Institute of Northeast Asia of Tianjin Academy of Social Science, Yunnan University, Waseda University, National University of Singapore, Taiwan Zhongzheng University, and messages from Archaeological circle and concerned departments of the banking system.

By drawing on experience both from his own and from the Eastern Express (silkroad) Project organized and conducted by the Ministry of Railway 10 years ago, Professor Sun Tianqing , the former director of English department in the Beijing Jiaotong University, who had also attended the 1st symposium, delivered an excellent and insightful speech, pointing out the importance of developing the silkroad as well as the vision of this project, and offered constructive advice. Professor Sun proposed that the Website should adopt a wide field of vision, the pan-silkroad attitude (both continental silkroad and marine silkroad), by stepping up the construction of the website, and that all departments concerned should get down to training professional tourist guides at an early stage, for the reason that silkroad covers a colorful and rich cultural soil, the wide spans of area and time of which make it rather difficult for an average tourist guide to do his job excellently. He also suggested that the website should be connected with the other relevant national projects, collaborate with cities along the silkroad both in China and in other countries in designing and developing the project, and base their work on the fruits of academic research all these years.

Mr. Manfield Zhu, professor from English department in the Capital University of Economics and Business and the vice secretary general of the American Branch of Western Returned Scholars Association, was deeply impressed by the fact that the designers and leaders in the Website attach great importance to improve themselves as well as to absorb staff with great potential open-mindedly and sincerely. He has always regarded the website as a bridge and a tie in pursuing the goal of “presenting Chinese culture to the world-influencing the future of human race”. He also highly praise the achievement already made by the company.

Representatives from relevant departments of the Railway Ministry presented a detailed introduction of the development of “the New Euro-Asia Intercontinental Bridge Project” (“New Silkroad” to UN) and commended the job the Website has done for this project. Accelerating construction of New Silkroad and strengthening cooperation with countries along the silk road not only opens opportunities for China to extend its influence on the Central Asia area, but also is of significance in the cause of our economic development and national rejuvenation, they said.

An expert on E-commerce from the headquarters of Agricultural Bank of China introduced the current situation of domestic E-commerce, commented on and commended the Shopping Center supported by the Website, and described the prospect of this service.

On the symposium were also the former chief of equipment department in PLA navy, General Zheng Ming , and the Secretary General of Beijing Institution of Zheng He's Voyage, Zhang Banying . They introduced the work that has been done since the center was set up, and the project the center is working on in cooperation with the Website: website constructing and maintaining, and website operating (including exclusive reports, exclusive sales, and those wireless products such as short message, color short message, color mobile phone, and online games). Secretary General Zhang Baoyin stressed that full use should be made of the very cultural brand resource--silkroad--to develop and promote new cultural tourism products, and that we should further cooperate with countries in ASEAN and around the world to serve the purpose of holding a national celebration for the 600th Anniversary of Zheng He's Voyage.

At 5p.m., the conference concluded fruitful in a heated atmosphere of discussion, laying a solid theoretical and technological foundation for the development of the Website. The conference also blueprinted tasks of this period for the website's financing and listing, and pointed out the direction of the website's future. Furthermore, it organically connected the web construction with the National Project of Euro-Asia Intercontinental Bridge, the 600th Anniversary of Zheng He's Voyage, the Project of Marine Silkroad, the Western Development Project and the Project of Developing the Silkroad under the National Tourism Ministry.

www.travel-silkroad.com was founded in 1998, is at present the only domestic large-scale e-commerce website under the theme of the well-known silkroad. It receives the most daily visit among the silkroad websites. Meanwhile, as the official website of the China Research Association of History of Tang Dynasty and the Beijing Institution of Zheng He's Voyage, it is the authority on introducing and researching of the continental silkroad and the marine silkroad. The website has drawn extensive attention of the concerned departments of the government, investment companies and research institutes.

翻译：余荣华 陈斯
校对：王舜杰

Chinese Version

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