On November 12, the 2024 Sichuan International Friendship Cities Cooperation and Development Conference opened in Chengdu, the capital of China's Sichuan Province. Yan Dong, Vice President of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech.
In his address, Yan Dong emphasized that international friendship cities cooperation serves as a key channel for enhancing subnational exchanges and fostering people-to-people ties between China and other countries. He described it as an important platform for Chinese localities to engage with the wider world and a significant mechanism for promoting international industrial cooperation, mutual benefit, and shared development. Yan highlighted Sichuan's achievements in recent years, noting that the province has fully leveraged its international sister-city resources to achieve remarkable results in personnel exchanges, economic and trade cooperation, cultural interactions, and youth engagement. He affirmed that these efforts have played a pivotal role in advancing Sichuan's high-quality development. Yan Dong further stated that the CPAFFC is committed to working with Sichuan to build more bridges for people-to-people exchanges, practical cooperation, cultural exchanges, and youth friendship. This joint effort, he noted, will make greater contributions to enhancing mutual understanding and friendship between Chinese and foreign peoples, facilitate state-to-state relations, strengthen practical partnerships between Chinese and foreign local governments, and support the collective goal of building a community with a shared future for mankind.
Hosted by the People's Government of Sichuan Province and organized by the Foreign Affairs Office of Sichuan Province, the conference was attended by nearly 300 Chinese and international guests from 30 countries.
