The 2018 China International Friendship Cities Conference was held in Wuhan on November the 15th. Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech. Wang Qishan pointed out: the world today is full of hopes, but also full of challenges. Only through open cooperation and common development can we make continuous progress and keep abreast of the pace of the times. Wang Qishan said that the concepts of harmonious coexistence, peaceful cooperation, openness and inclusiveness exist in the genes of the Chinese nation. In the long history of more than 5000 years, the various nationalities in China have formed the Chinese nation unceasingly, and have cast the splendid Chinese civilization. Since modern times, the Chinese people have endured sufferings and humiliations, and are keenly aware of the value of peace and the urgency of development. Wang Qishan stressed: in nearly 70 years since the founding of New China, especially in the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the Chinese people have worked hard and ushered in a bright prospect of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era. The goal of the Chinese party and government is to satisfy the people's yearning for a better life. The interests of China and the world are deeply integrated, and China is willing to join hands with other countries to find a new road of state-to-state exchanges with mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, so as to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Wang Qishan said: the Chinese Government supports the development of friendly exchanges between Chinese and foreign peoples through various channels and at various levels. The activities of China's international friendship cities have been carried out for 45 years. The fruitful inter-city cooperation has vigorously promoted local economic and social development at home and abroad, and enhanced mutual understanding and friendship between the Chinese people and the people all over the world. Wang Qishan expressed the hope that the guests at the meeting will pool their wisdom and build consensus around the theme of the conference, "Sharing Development Opportunities and Deepening Win-win Cooperation", so as to inject new vitality into inter-city exchanges and cooperation in the new era. Wang Qishan also exchanged greetings with Ugandan Vice President Ssekandi and former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama who came to China to attend the meeting.          

On November 15th, Vice President Xie Yuan met with the 8-people delegation from the union of Russian Cities (URC) that was invited to attend the 2018 China International Friendship Cities Conference in Wuhan. Vice President Xie Yuan first welcomed Ms.Alexandra Ignatyeva, General Director of URC, and thanked her for leading the delegation to join in the conference. He said that 2018 and 2019 were designated as the years of China-Russia local cooperation and exchange. Cooperation between the two countries at local and regional level had shown great development momentum and played an increasingly important role in pragmatic cooperation between China and Russia. Especially in September this year, during his visit to Russia, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a dialogue among regional leaders from China and Russia together with Russian President Putin. Representatives from local governments of the two countries gathered together to share experience and seek common development, and achieved fruitful results. He hoped that the 2018 China International Friendship Cities Conference could also become part of the years of China-Russia local cooperation and exchange, and contribute to comprehensively expanding and deepening local exchanges between the two countries. Ignatyeva expressed her thanks for the invitation to the conference. She pointed out that as a high-level platform, the 2018 China International Friendship Cities Conference provided a wide range of chances for cooperation among local governments of different countries. At present, more and more Russian cities want to cooperate with Chinese cities, and she hoped that through joint efforts, the two organizations could enrich and improve the local exchange mechanism between China and Russia. Ignatyeva also proposed that the two organizations jointly held a Sino-Russian Cities Forum during the first half of next year in Yekaterinburg of Russia, and discussed relative details such as the number of participants and conference agenda with Xie. Xie showed strong support for Ignatyeva’s proposal and hoped that URC could send written materials in time for further communication.         Photographed by Gao Yuan

On November 14th , Vice President Xie Yuan of CPAFFC and CIFCA met with President Günter Titsch of INTERKULTURE who is invited to attend China International Friendship Cities Conference 2018. Vice President Xie welcomed President Titsch to attend the Conference. Xie said that China International Friendship Cities Conference is one of the most important platforms that we have build to promote the exchanges between Chinese and foreign local governments. President Titsch has attended the conference for many times. Under his leadership, INTERKULTURE has built a bridge of friendship among different nations through the channel of music. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Xie hoped that in this historic year, the two organizations will actively participate in their respective activities and continue to develop close contacts so as to build a platform for Sino-German and Sino-European civil and local governments exchanges and jointly promote world peace. President Titsch expressed his gratitude for inviting him to attend the Conference and his appreciation for the contribution that CPAFFC and CIFCA have made to Chinese and foreign civil and local governments exchanges over the years. INTERKULTURE is willing to work closely with our association to strengthen cultural exchanges at local and regional level between China and Germany and other European countries respectively.        

On November 14th, Vice President Xie Yuan met with President Andreas Vyras of union of Cyprus Municipalities, who is invited to attend China International Friendship Cities Conference 2018. Vice President Xie welcomed President Vyras to attend the Conference. Xie said that China International Friendship Cities Conference is one of the most important platforms that we have build to promote the exchanges between Chinese and foreign local governments. It has been held for five consecutive sessions. The presence of the delegation of union of Cyprus Municipalities is an important starting point for the cooperation between our two organizations. Up to now, China and Cyprus have formally twinned one affiliation of friendship cities. Xie hoped that we will work closely to promote the development of friendship cities, carry out cooperation under the “Belt and Road” Initiative and build more cooperation platforms for civil and local governments exchanges between China and Cyprus. President Vyras expressed his gratitude for inviting him to attend the Conference. His union has close contacts with the Chinese embassy in Cyprus and both of them have cooperated in a number of activities involving education, tourism and culture. Vyras is willing to establish a cooperative relationship with our association and to develop exchanges and cooperation in various fields between China and Cyprus and other European countries respectively.        

The Second China-Latin America and Caribbean Local Governments Cooperation Forum was held in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province on November 14, 2018. Nearly 200 local governments officials from 24 provinces and cities in 14 foreign countries including the Republic of Argentina, the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, the Republic of El Salvador, the United States of Mexico, Plurinational State of Bolivia, the Republic of Chile, the Republic of Haiti, the Republic of Suriname, Cooperative Republic of Guyana, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Panama, the Republic of Costa Rica, the Republic of Peru, and local governments leaders from 14 Chinese provinces, municipalities directly under the Central government, autonomous regions (25 cities), attended the forum. Mr. Xie Yuan, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), Mme. Xu Honglan, Vice Mayor of Wuhan Municipal People's Government, Mr. Dong Xiaojun, Ambassador of Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Mr. Marne Yohn Osorio Lima, President of Uruguay Mayors Association, Mr. Ana María Silva Gutierrez, Vice President of Chilean City Association, Mr.  Edde Cuellar Alegría, co-President of Peruvian City Association and etc., delivered speeches respectively and emphasized the importance and urgency of strengthening the exchanges and cooperation of the local governments. With the theme of win-win cooperation for common development, representatives actively made speeches on the topics, such as, city management, unique industry development, friendly cities (provinces and states) exchanges and etc. so as to promote the cooperation among the parties in the field of trade, tourism, people-to-people and culture. The forum was embodied the achievements document of Second Ministerial Meeting of the Forum of China and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (China-CELAC Forum )  in order to build the platform to exchange for the local governments between China and Latin America and Caribbean.         Photographed by Sun Tao 

On Nov.13, Vice President Hu Sishe Meets with Dr. Claude Begle, Member of Swiss Federal Parliament and President of Swiss-China World Silk Road Association. Mr.Hu first extended his welcome to Dr.Begle for his third visit to CPAFFC this year and expressed sincere congratulations to the official launch of Swiss-China World Silk Road Association in Swiss Embassy in China tomorrow (Nov.14). He suggested that the two associations can seize the opportunities rising in the process of deepening reform and opening-up to deepen cooperation and establish the mechanism of high-level Dialogue with topics of inter-parliament exchanges, ecological protection, innovation of science and technology, tourism and culture all included in the mechanism.  Dr.Begle extended his gratitude to his visit to Sanjianggyuan region in Qinghai owing to the arrangement of CPAFFC. He said that he experienced for himself the improvement of local life in Sanjiangyuan Region and the unity and mutual assistance between Han people and Tibetans. He also hopes that the two associations together with Qinghai province can have more cooperation in inter-parliament exchanges, wild life protection, integrated water resources  management and Tibetan medicine. Mr. Jing Yunchuan, Executive president of Swiss-China World Silk Road Association, Mr.Guo Qingzhu,councilor of Swiss-China World Silk Road Association, and Mr. Ji Wei, Deputy Director-General of Cultural Exchange Department of CPAFFC also attended the meeting.          

On Novenmber. 13th ,Vice President Song Jingwu met with Mr. Thorkell Arnason, the newly elected president of Icelandic Chinese Cultural Society and Gunnar Gunnarson,  Ambassador of Iceland to China. Vice president Song Jingwu congratulated Mr.Arnason on his election as new president of ICCS and asked him to convey his greetings to his predecessors, especially old friend of  CPAFFC , Mr Arnthor Helgason. President Arnason said that he hmself is engaged in high-tech coorperation with China, and while was elected president of ICCS this October, he will make new contributions to promoting Iceland-China friendship and cooperation.Ambassodor Gunnarson invited president Song Jingwu to attend the reception celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Independency of Iceland, which will be held this month.  The two sides exchanged views widely on enhancement of people-to-people friendship and furthering cooperation on high-tech, cultural exchange, geothermy and arctic affairs.        

Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of National People’s Congress & President of the Chinese-Arab Friendship Association (CAFA), Arken Imirbaki met with Habib El Malki, President of the House of Representatives on November 9th, during his visit to Morocco. Arken first conveyed Chairman Li Zhanshu's cordial greetings. Noting that China and Morocco enjoyed profound traditional friendship, and this year marks the 60th anniversary of bilateral ties, he said that China is willing to work with Morocco to implement the consensus reached by the two heads of state, and elevate the China-Morocco strategic partnership to a new level. Arken also briefed Mr. Malki on the Second Chinese and Arab Cities Forum and its achievements. Stressing that Morocco greatly values its friendly relationship with China, Mr. Malki said that Morocco appreciates China’s contribution to its social and economic development and called on both sides to deepen bilateral cooperation in all fields. Chinese Ambassador to Morocco Li Li and CPAFFC Vice President Lin Yi were present at the meeting.         Photographed by Fang Ying

On Nov. 8th, Vice President Xie Yuan met with an Iowa trade mission headed by Tiffany Tauscheck, chief strategy officer of the Greater Des Moines Partnership (CDME). VP Xie welcomed the delegation to participate the first China International Import Expo. He spoke highly of the achievements made by Iowa in cooperation with China in various fields, and the vision and strong belief that it has shown in building a stronger tie with China. VP Xie briefed a series of programs that the CPAFFC has initiated in enhancing China-U.S. subnational exchanges and cooperation. He said that CPAFFC would like to work jointly with American friends to promote the healthy development of bilateral relations. Ms. Tauschck thanked the CPAFFC for the support and assistance in Iowa’s cooperation with China over the past years. On behalf of the CDME, she wished to strengthen the ties with China in a wide range of areas such as economy, trade, agriculture and education and make active efforts in U.S-China relations.        

On 8 November, H.E. Arken Imirbaki, Vice Chairman of NPC Standing Committee & President of the Chinese-Arab Friendship Association, attended and addressed the Opening Ceremony of the Second Chinese Arab Cities Forum, jointly hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), Arab Towns Organization (ATO) and Ministry of Interior of Morocco in Marrakesh of Morocco. Aziz Rabbah, Minister of Energy, Mines, Water & Sustainable of Morocco, Ahmed Hamad Al Subih, Secretary General of ATO, and President of the Moroccan Association of Regions, President of the Moroccan Association of Presidents of Communal Councils, as well as President of Marrakesh-Safi Region also attended and delivered respective speeches. Over 250 participants representing non-governmental organizations, academicians, local governments and private sectors both from China and from Arab countries were present at the forum as well.         Photographed by Tu Lili