Mayor Ying meets representatives of 20 friendship city delegations

Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong met with representatives of 20 friendship city delegations, including those from Cork City, Ireland; Athens, Greece; and Yangon City, Myanmar, on Wednesday.

Ying welcomed the delegations to the 2nd China International Import Expo and the 2019 CIIE Sister Cities Cooperation Forum.

He said that exchanges and cooperation are the mainstream of today’s world as it’s an irreversible trend. The development of Shanghai is inseparable from opening up and international cooperation. Openness, innovation and tolerance have become Shanghai’s most distinctive characters, Ying maintained.

At present, Shanghai has 90 city-level and district-level friendship cities in 59 countries around the world, the mayor noted, adding that it is an important part of China’s friendly exchanges with other countries. Facing the future, Shanghai is willing to further expand its openness with a more positive attitude and more effective measures, further deepen exchanges and cooperation with sister cities, promote mutual learning, and achieve mutual benefit and common development, Ying added.

The representatives of the 20 delegations expressed their enthusiasm for attending the CIIE, and hoped to deepen cooperation with Shanghai in various fields.

City leaders Sha Hailin and Xu Kunlin also attended the meeting.