Representatives from friendship cities and Chinese experts have a discussion at the 2023 Shanghai International Friendship Cities Cooperation Forum held in Shanghai on December 1, 2023. Photo: Global Times

The 2023 Shanghai International Friendship Cities Cooperation Forum was held in Shanghai on Friday, with representatives from 13 cities in 12 countries sharing their experiences in various areas including smart city development, innovation, and economic and trade cooperation.

With the theme of "Deepening friendship cities cooperation and promoting high-quality development," the forum invited guests from cities such as Dunedin in New Zealand, Vientiane in Laos, Johannesburg in South Africa, and Los Angeles in the US, offering a platform for international participants to exchange ideas and enhance mutual understanding and learning.

Cities are important for promoting high-quality development, creating high-quality living, and comprehensively building a modernized country. Strengthening the construction of smart cities, promoting economic and trade cooperation, and jointly promoting high-quality development are strategic choices shared by Shanghai and other cities, Hua Yuan, vice mayor of Shanghai, said in the opening speech at the forum.

As a sister city to Shanghai for nearly 30 years, Dunedin has maintained frequent high-level exchanges and achieved fruitful results in the fields of culture, education, science and technology, as well as economy and trade with Shanghai. "The value of all sister city relationships is that each city has its own unique strengths. There are many things that we can learn from each other," Jules Radich, mayor of Dunedin, said at the forum. The Shanghai-Dunedin sister city relationship was established in 1994.

This was Radich's first visit to Shanghai, and he said he hopes to cooperate with Shanghai in the fields of education, scientific research, tourism, and fashion, in order to help more local products enter the market and to promote mutually beneficial cooperation between enterprises in the two cities.

Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa with an area of 1,645 square kilometers and a population of over 4 million, established friendly exchange relations with Shanghai in 2009. Sello Enoch Morero, member of the Mayoral Committee for Finance of the City of Johannesburg, said that the city has implemented a smart program in which people can pay for municipal services through smartphones, which is one of the things they learnt from Shanghai.

Morero told the Global Times on Friday that they hope to develop technology for preventing crimes, as well as enhancing the entire communication network for transport, fire, and emergency management systems.

Wajenda Chambeshi, director of International Relations, Policy and Protocol of Los Angeles, said at the forum that they are working to implement forward-looking partnerships with other cities such as green shipping corridors.

There were two sessions at the forum, in which the representatives from friendship cities and Chinese experts discussed smart city development and economic and trade cooperation.

The forum was co-organized by the Foreign Affairs Office of Shanghai Municipal People's Government and Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. Rafael Lacava, governor of Carabobo State, Venezuela also made an opening speech at the forum.

Global Times