The Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, or CEE, account for nearly a quarter of the countries covered by China's Belt and Road initiative.
So far, half of them have signed a memorandum of understanding linking up with the Chinese initiative, with Latvia being the latest, following Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's official visit to the Baltic country.
Over the past three years since the Belt and Road initiative was first put forward, annual Chinese investment in the CEE countries has grown by more than 40 percent.
Meanwhile, many goods from the region, produced with EU quality control standards, but much cheaper than those from western Europe, have found their way into the Chinese market.
On the financial front, China has added 3 billion US dollars to its existing low-interest loans offered to the 16 CEE countries since 2013.
With more on China's economic cooperation with CEE countries under the framework of the Belt and Road, CRI's Ding Heng earlier spoke with Professor Wang Yiwei, Director of the Center for European Studies, also an expert on the Chinese initiative, with Renmin University of China.
