Swiss Ambassador to China Dr. Jean-Jacques de Dardel pledged more practical cooperation with China on innovation and digitization, calling for people-to-people exchanges at the Swiss Innovation Week 2018 in Beijing on Tuesday. 

"As China looks towards Made in China 2025, as it looks to changing everybody's habitat, we feel that we should do things together so we can learn from each other," the ambassador said while assuring substantive Swiss presence at the China International Import Expo in November. 

The special event, organized by the Embassy of Switzerland in China, features a number of interactive activities on digitalization, virtual reality and artificial intelligence to showcase Switzerland’s innovative capacity. 

Concrete projects on different spheres of bilateral relations were focused in the event, including political, education, culture, sustainability,  and humanitarian efforts. Achievements and potentials of  the latest bilateral collaboration were also demonstrated to call on further cooperation in this domain. "Our ultimate goal is to facilitate collaboration and explore potentials between Swiss and Chinese governments, institutions, and the private sector", the ambassador said.  

The Swiss Innovation Week for the very first time is an extension of the Sino-Swiss Innovative Strategic Partnership the two countries established in 2016, according to Dardel. "We are confident that the innovation week in China will effectively shed light on Switzerland’s innovation system, encourage more joint innovative solutions and more collaboration between Switzerland and China", the ambassador said, noting it also a platform for further cooperation, such as the Sino-Swiss AI conference 2018 and the ABB 2018 University Innovation Contest.