YANGZHOU, China, Oct. 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The main session of the 2018 World Canal Cities Forum, sponsored by the World Historic and Cultural Canal Cities Cooperation Organization (WCCO), was held on October 12, 2018, in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, China. With "Protection, Inheritance and Usage of the World Canal City Culture" as its theme, the forum showcased the many outstanding achievements of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt in Jiangsu and highlighted the province's exemplary performance in the development of the Grand Canal culture. The forum was supported by the Jiangsu Provincial Leading Panel on Grand Canal Cultural Belt Development.

The World Canal Cities Forum serves as a portal through which to gain insight concerning the role that canals have played in the course of human civilization, doing so through the depiction of historical relics, human landscapes, folk customs and traditional life worldwide. This year's session enjoyed record-setting attendance of more than 400 attendees. Important figures and distinguished guests were invited to address the audience on such issues as environmental protection, biodiversity, urban construction and cultural heritage in canal cities worldwide. Thus they expounded on the issues of sustainable development, protection, cultural bequests, tourism development and cooperation with respect to the world's canals. In doing so, they described the importance of international friendship and mutual trust as the means to ensure a new era for the world's canals.

WCCO is a nonprofit international organization freely established by the world's canal cities and related economic and cultural institutions. With the canal as a common avenue, it pursues cooperation on the world's canal-city project, sharing experience in the development of canal culture while facilitating economic exchanges between canal cities for more mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation. It provides an impetus for the world's canals to cut a new path. In the process it shows the world a fabled canal of China; one that has been reborn with a prosperous outlook.