On August 12, 2014, the "Opportunities, Challenges and Reforms: Seminar on Overseas Livelihood Projects Construction under the New Situation", jointly organized by the Department of Consular Affairs of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the China Public Diplomacy Association, was held in Beijing. More than 50 people attended the Seminar, including experts and scholars of relevant fields, and representatives of relevant ministries and commissions of the central government, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, the Central Committee of Zhigong Party, local Foreign Affairs Offices, enterprises and media. Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jianchao attended the Seminar and delivered a speech. The Seminar was hosted by Secretary General Song Ronghua of the China Public Diplomacy Association. Director-General Huang Ping of the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Vice President Lv Fengding of the China Public Diplomacy Association delivered speeches respectively. Vice President Yang Mingjie of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, Vice President Wang Chengan of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and Research Fellow Xu Hongqiang of the Development Research Center of the State Council delivered keynote speeches. Director-General Huang Ping made a concluding speech.

The participants carried out discussions and actively provided advice and proposals on how to construct overseas livelihood projects, to weave a strong "safety net" safeguarding China's interests overseas, to innovate relevant work mechanisms and systems and so on. The main points are: to elevate the construction of overseas livelihood projects to the level of the overall national security, to strengthen top-level design and theory building, to promote legislation of consular protection, to increase the inputs of personnel, finance and materials, to give full play to the "Troika" role of the government, the market and the society, to clarify the main body and responsibility, to comprehensively adopt diplomatic, economic, legal and military, police and other means to optimize and weave well the mechanism and system of "safety net" and to coordinate early warning, emergency management , information dissemination and other relevant work, so as to provide strong and comprehensive guarantee for the implementation of the "going out" strategy.

The convening of the Seminar is one of the measures taken by the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to further implement the requirements of improving the system of consular protection in the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms initiated in the third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC, as well as to implement the important instructions given by Premier Li Keqiang recently on constructing overseas livelihood projects and weaving a strong "safety net" safeguarding China's overseas interests.