On 28 December 2016, H.E. Mme. Yang Xiuping, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC), met with Mr. Zhang Haibo, Vice Mayor of Jinan Municipal People’s Government, during which they exchanged views on exchanges and cooperation between Jinan and ASEAN. Mr. Geng Jianxin, Deputy Secretary-General of Jinan Municipal People’s Government, officials from local foreign affairs, commerce, tourism, trade and investment departments, and Mr. Zhang Xuehai, Deputy Director of Information and Public Relations Division of ACC attended the meeting.

On behalf of Jinan Municipal People’s Government, Mr. Zhang Haibo extended a warm welcome to Secretary-General Yang and the delegation and thanked ACC for its support for Jinan’s opening-up endeavour. He cited that Jinan, being the capital of China’s major coastal province of Shandong, is full of vigour and vitality in its economic and social development. The local government is committed to building Jinan into a modern municipality and a key regional hub for economic development, financial services, logistics and science and technology innovation which is commensurate to the strong economic and cultural capacity of Shandong province. In recent years, Jinan stands firm to the opening-up strategy, actively advances its exchanges and cooperation with ASEAN on several platforms such as Jinan International Culture Week and China International Travel Mart. Cooperation in various fields has yielded positive outcomes. ACC, as an intergovernmental organization co-founded by China and ASEAN countries, has unique strengths and resources in advancing friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two sides. Jinan hopes to get continued support and assistance from ACC and play a bigger role in China-ASEAN cooperation so as to inject fresh impetus to its sustainable development.

Secretary-General Yang mentioned the development of ASEAN-China relations and ACC’s contributions to the friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two sides. She said that Jinan enjoys a time-honoured history and culture, thriving economic and social development and tremendous potential. Sub-national exchanges and cooperation is an integral part of ASEAN-China relations and plays an increasingly important role. Thus, ACC is ready to maintain close communication and coordination with Jinan to explore new ways and areas of cooperation and contribute its share to cooperation between Jinan and ASEAN and promote all-round and in-depth development of ASEAN-China relations to the benefit of the people.

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