After nearly 30 years, "Erbin" once again hosted the Asian Winter Games (referred to as "Asian Winter Games"), becoming my country's first "Double Asian Winter City". This is also the third time that China has become the host of the Asian Winter Games.

From February 7th to 14th, the 9th Asian Winter Conference was held in Harbin. More than 1,270 athletes from 34 countries and regions gathered in the "Ice City" to compete for 6 major events, 11 sub-items and 64 sub-items.

Time is turned back to 1996. At the third Asian Winter Games, athletes from 17 countries and regions came to Harbin to participate in the competition, among which Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan appeared as "new faces".

Spanning nearly 30 years, this Asian Winter Conference has adhered to inheritance and innovation. Not only has it established more than 30% of the new projects, it has also welcomed ice and snow athletes in hot areas such as Cambodia and Saudi Arabia for the first time, vividly interpreting the importance of "Ice and snow dream together, Asia is united in one's heart".

Just like there are several "hard dishes" when treating guests to dinner in Northeast China. "Erbin", which has the "first experience" of the Asian Winter Games, has relied on its resource endowment to "send" a "ice and snow meal" that integrates technology and humanities for Asia and the world.

At the Yabuli Ski Resort before the race, hundreds of large-scale snow-making equipment were operated roaringly, and each snow track was subjected to 24 hours of uninterrupted artificial snow production.

Recalling that in 1996, Yabuli Snow Resort encountered the lowest snowfall in eight years, the organizing committee mobilized a large amount of manpower to carry snow and cushion to ensure the smooth progress of the competition. Nowadays, in this same ski resort, the power support inspection work that used to manually climb mountains and walk on snow has also been replaced by digital power support systems and intelligent drone inspection teams.

UAV "5G+Beidou" wide-area seamless integration positioning technology, automated "ice machine", clean and efficient electric ice-watering truck... A series of technological "hard dishes" appeared one by one at the Asian Winter Games, protecting the achievements of ice and snow athletes. At the same time, all participating venues use environmentally friendly materials and energy-saving technologies, and some venues also use renewable energy.

Cultural exchange is also an important highlight of this Asian Winter Games. During the event, the organizing committee planned and launched a series of cultural activities such as the Ice and Snow Sculpture Exhibition, Northeast Folk Experience and Ice and Snow Music Festival. At the same time, during the entire Asian Winter Games, Harbin also launched 12 boutique routes of "Travel with the Events" by connecting major scenic spots, venues and events, showing the world the unique charm of the "Ice and Snow Cultural Capital".

"Ice and snow are also mountains of gold and silver." With the increasingly perfect layout of the ice and snow industry and the increasingly solid foundation of the industrial chain, my country's ice and snow economy potential has been continuously released. According to the "Research Report on the Development of China's Ice and Snow Industry (2024)", the scale of my country's ice and snow industry will reach 970 billion yuan in 2024, and it is expected to exceed the trillion yuan mark in 2025.

In October 2024, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Stimulating the Vitality of the Ice and Snow Economy through the High-Quality Development of Ice and Snow Sports", which clearly put forward 24 measures in 8 aspects, aiming to promote the ice and snow economy to become a new growth point. The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year clearly proposed to actively develop the ice and snow economy in key tasks in 2025.

On the eve of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Snake, local two sessions were held intensively, which can more clearly see the determination and direction of many places to make efforts to deploy the ice and snow economy. For example, Jilin Province proposed to build an ice and snow equipment industrial park to strengthen the scale of the ice and snow equipment industry; Heilongjiang Province proposed to accelerate the construction of projects such as the headquarters base of the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization Ice and Snow Sports Demonstration Zone, Ice and Snow Equipment Industrial Park, and Digital Ice and Snow Sports Industrial Park; Hebei Province clearly stated that the development of the ice and snow economy will be the focus of investment and promoting consumption and promoting sustained and stable economic growth.

I believe that with the 9th Asian Winter Conference as an opportunity, the results of "driven 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports" are expected to be further consolidated and expanded. Driven by more favorable policies, the ice and snow economy will surely shine.

General Planning: Sun Haifeng

Producer: Zhang Feiran, Xie Ting

Producer: Lu Qian

Planning: Shen Jiaping, Li Jia

Text: Fang Jinglun

Video: Shi Xinpei

Editor: Shi Xue

Design: Lin Shanshan

Packaging: Zhao Chen