(Shenzhen APEC) Shenzhen Mayor Li Yun: The meeting is ready and waiting for guests from all directions

China News Service, Shenzhen, November 14 (Reporter Cheng Jingwei) The 33rd Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Informal Meeting will be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong from November 18 to 19, 2026. This is the third time that China has served as the host of APEC for the first time in 12 years. At present, all preparations for the conference are in place and waiting for guests from all over the world to arrive.

The 2026 APEC Leaders’ Meeting Week News Center held a special briefing for Chinese and foreign media in Guangdong Province and Shenzhen City on the 14th. Wang Xi, member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and deputy leader and office director of the Guangdong Provincial Preparatory Leading Group for the APEC Conference, said at the meeting that Guangdong and Shenzhen have gone all out to promote conference preparations and service guarantees, strengthen urban greening, beautification, and purification, make full use of existing resources to renovate and upgrade venues, and actively advocate green travel.

At the same time, Guangdong and Shenzhen have integrated China's excellent traditional culture and Lingnan cultural heritage into various scenes such as venue layout, artistic performances, and catering services; they have organically integrated digital technologies such as artificial intelligence into reception services, city visits, and other aspects, and widely used technologies such as intelligent navigation, intelligent translation, digital customs clearance, and smart scheduling.

Li Yun, deputy leader of the Guangdong Provincial Preparatory Leading Group for the APEC meeting and mayor of Shenzhen, said that all venue facilities are currently ready, and full-process drills have been conducted to identify shortcomings and optimize improvements to ensure that all aspects of the meeting and activities run smoothly.

During the conference week, Shenzhen will welcome many overseas guests. Li Yun said that Shenzhen has launched a series of facilitation measures focusing on the entire chain of travel, services, consumption and travel for foreign guests in Shenzhen. Among them, in terms of entry and exit facilitation, 9 ports of sea, land, air, and rail are fully covered with dedicated passages for delegates; Bao'an International Airport implements advance inspection of checked baggage and seamless customs clearance; Huanggang Port implements a "cooperative inspection, one-time release" customs clearance model.

In terms of language service facilitation, Shenzhen has standardized more than 100,000 foreign language signs, deployed more than 7,000 sets of AI translation equipment in key scenes such as ports, airports, rail transit, scenic spots, and business districts, and taxis have fully implemented "bilingual broadcasting."

In terms of payment service facilitation, there are more than 3,000 ATM machines in Shenzhen that support foreign card cash withdrawals, and more than 1,600 bank outlets can handle foreign currency exchanges; the "foreign card binding" and "outsourced internal use" services have been launched, that is, overseas bank cards can be bound to payment platforms such as WeChat, and overseas e-wallets can be paid through WeChat scan codes; all subway gates in the city have supported overseas bank cards to pass through the gate.

In terms of convenience for consumption and shopping, the number of departure tax refund shops in Shenzhen has increased to 3,160, and the number of "buy now and get tax refund" stores exceeds 1,000.

During the conference week, Guangdong launched 218 visiting points and 43 visiting routes across the province, and launched two representative visiting routes, the "Qianhai Line" and the "Nanshan Line" in Shenzhen, to facilitate guests to experience the vitality of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and the fervent practice of Chinese-style modernization in Guangdong.

Shenzhen is a city of volunteers. During the conference week, a total of 1,360 conference volunteers and tens of thousands of city volunteers were active in conference venues, airports, transportation hubs and business district attractions, providing warm services to friends coming from afar. (over)