SHENYANG, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The 2020 Global Industrial Internet Conference (GIIC) opened Sunday in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The conference, with its theme of empowering a high-quality economy and fostering new growth drivers, gathers top scholars and over 30 industry leaders from both China and abroad to discuss a wide variety of issues regarding the industrial internet.

This year's event will focus on new applications and modes of the industrial internet in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic and in helping enterprises resume work and production.

It will also emphasize how the industrial internet can promote China's new development pattern of "dual circulation," in which domestic and overseas markets complement and reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.

The exhibitions of the GIIC feature interactive demonstrations of 5G applications, such as 5G-assisted parts assembly and 5G-enabled VR interactive experiences.

The event was jointly organized by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the China Association for Science and Technology, and the provincial government of Liaoning.