The 2022 China Petroleum & Chemical International Conference convened in Ningbo on Nov 14 and will run until Nov 17, local media reported.

This is the third year in a row that the conference has been held in the city in East China's Zhejiang province.

The event gathered a number of industry heavyweights, including PetroChina, Sinopec, CNOOC, BASF, Dow, SK and Mitsubishi, as well as various international organizations, industry associations and research institutes to explore the future development of the petrochemical industry.

In addition, parallel sessions featuring a host of topics, including how regional cooperation mechanisms such as RCEP can contribute to a higher level of opening-up in the petrochemical industry, and how cities can improve and upgrade the green petrochemical industry chain, will be held as well.

Ningbo has become a global production and innovation hub for the green petrochemical industry, according to Pang Guangqian, deputy secretary-general of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation.

Data show that the output value of enterprises above the designated size in the green petrochemical industry in Ningbo amounted to 406.3 billion yuan ($58 billion) in 2021. The city's R&D spending in the industry hit 4.43 billion yuan, a year-on-year uptick of 45.7 percent.

The local government has set the target of raising the total industrial output value of its petrochemical industry to 1 trillion yuan by 2025.