ＣＰＡＦＦＣ Ｖｉｃｅ Ｐｒｅｓｉｄｅｎｔ Ｌｉ Ｘｉａｏｌｉｎ ａｎｄ Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ Ｌｏｃａｌ Ｇｏｖｅｒｎｍｅｎｔ Ｄｅｌｅｇａｔｉｏｎ Ａｔｔｅｎｄ ２５ｔｈ Ａｎｎｉｖｅｒｓａｒｙ Ｃｏｎ

CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin and the Chinese local government delegation led by Gou Jianli， vice chairperson of the Sichuan Provincial People’s Political Consultative Conference， attended the 25th anniversary conference of Sister Cities New Zealand in Wellington from May 9 to 12. The theme of this year’s conference is “Capitalising on the Gains” and about 250 delegates from New Zealand， China， Japan， Australia and the U.S. participated in the conference. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark attended the opening ceremony and made a speech. CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin also spoke at the opening ceremony.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the first pair of friendship-city relations between China and New Zealand (Guilin-Hastings). The two capitals Beijing and Wellington signed the agreement on twinning friendship cities during the conference. As friendship city links between the two countries have developed smoothly in recent years， China becomes the focus of attention in the conference.

In her address， Prime Minister Clark spoke highly of the development of sister city links between China and New Zealand. She said that in the past 25 years， the two countries have developed a comprehensive relationship which extends far beyond the governmental contacts to the exchange and cooperation in broad fields such as tourism， education， culture， etc.. And the contacts between the local governments have played an important role in the development of bilateral relations.

CPAFFC Vice President Li Xiaolin was invited to speak as important foreign guest. She said in the past 25 years the friendship cities between China and New Zealand have carried out fruitful cooperation at various levels in extensive fields. She stressed that friendship city links between China and New Zealand have become an effective way for the two peoples to improve mutual understanding and friendship and promote cooperation and common development. The CPAFFC will make continuous efforts to push forward the friendship city links in the future.

The cooperation between Chinese and New Zealand friendship cities became a hot topic at the panel discussions during the conference. Mayor of Hastings highly praised its link with Guilin， saying that the two cities share many common interests in the fields of horticulture， tourism， education and culture. With the establishment of free trade zones in the two countries， the two cites will sign more trade contracts. Mayor of Dunedin (friendship city of Shanghai) said that the sister city work is considered very important by the government. Exchanges between senior officials are frequent. The Shanghai-Dunedin Friendship City Association was set up to coordinate the sister city affairs.

During the conference， the two capitals Beijing and Wellington formally launched their friendship city relationship， and became the 22nd pair of friendship cities between China and New Zealand. The vice mayor of Beijing Sun Anmin said that following the theme of “New Beijing， Great Olympics”， Beijing is accelerating the development of various undertaking and striving to build itself into a first-class modernized international metropolitan. The fact that Beijing and Wellington become friendship cities will help both sides to learn from each other’s experience and make common progress. Wellington mayor also expressed her high expectation of the link and said that she was planning to lead a large delegation to visit Beijing this November to further cooperation between the two cities.

Some delegation members whose cities have not yet set up friendship city relations with New Zealand seized the precious opportunity to get into contact with New Zealand delegates and promote their own cities. Chengdu delegates showed the DVD introduction of their city， which drew many participants to watch and know about Chengdu. Delegates from Yibin， Sichuan Province had a pleasant talk with a delegate from Waitakere， who intended to pay a friendly visit to Yibin later this year.

The year 2007 will mark the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationship between China and New Zealand. The CPAFFC will organize a larger delegation of Chinese local government officials to attend the annual conference of Sister Cities New Zealand next year to let more New Zealanders to know about Chinese cities and Chinese culture.