Five more Sino-foreign friendship cities, provinces inked

WUHAN — Three cities and one province signed agreements to establish friendly relations with their counterparts in Mongolia, Thailand, Kenya and Canada on Nov 16.

North China's Shanxi became a friendly province with Mongolia's Dundgovi province and Kenya's Mombasa county. Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province built friendly ties with Bangkok, capital of Thailand, as did Qingyang in China's Gansu province with the Canadian city of Shawinigan.

Wuhai, a city in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, also inked the friendship agreement with Mongolia's Darkhan-Uul province.

Their ties were inked during the 2018 China International Friendship Cities Conference, which concluded in Wuhan on Nov 16.

So far, a total of 2,571 such "friendship cities" or "friendship provinces" have been built between China and 136 countries and regions in the world.

At the conference, 78 foreign provinces and cities also won awards from the Chinese government for friendly ties with China.

The two-day conference themed "Sharing Development Opportunities and Deepening Win-win Cooperation" has attracted over 800 representatives from more than 60 countries and regions.

Initiated in 2008, the conference is convened every two years, and the next will be held in Kunming, capital of China's Yunnan province, in 2020.