People work at the construction site of the Kuantan tunnel of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) in Pahang state, Malaysia, Aug. 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

China's cooperation with Belt and Road countries has shown strong vitality during the COVID-19 pandemic, and so far, China has signed 201 cooperation documents on joint Belt and Road construction with 138 countries and 31 international organizations, reported Shanghai Securities News Friday.

As the world's largest supplier of anti-epidemic materials, China has provided substantial material and technical assistance to Belt and Road countries when the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the world.

Up to now, China has provided 280-odd batches of emergency anti-epidemic supplies to more than 150 countries and international organizations.

In the first three quarters this year, China's investment and trade cooperation with Belt and Road countries grew at a faster speed than the overall investment and trade growth of China.

Data showed that during this period, China's total imports and exports with Belt and Road countries registered 963.42 billion U.S. dollars, dropping by one percent year on year but 0.8 percentage point higher than the overall national growth; China's non-financial direct investment in these countries hit 13.02 billion U.S. dollars, up 29.7 percent year on year and 32.3 percentage points higher than the overall national growth.

Besides, as of November 5 this year, the China-Europe freight trains had made 10,180 trips, surpassing that of the whole year of 2019, with 927,000 TEUs of goods delivered, up 54 percent year on year.

"Thanks to China's rapid economic recovery and active opening to the outside world, as well as the sound foundation laid over the past seven years, in the face of the impact of the epidemic, the cooperation in the joint Belt and Road construction has shown full resilience," said Meng Wei, deputy director with the Department of Policy Studies of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and spokeswoman for NDRC.

A series of favorable policies will still be introduced to boost high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, Meng noted, adding that efforts will be made to strengthen building of key ports, promote the reconstruction of related sections of the western, central and eastern channels for China-Europe freight trains, and speed up the construction of the China-Europe freight train assembly center demonstration project.