On October 13rd, 2015, the 17th Exchange Conference of Friendly Cities among China, Japan and Korea was held in Yiwu city. The Conference was hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), co-hosted by the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR) and Governors Association of Korea (GAK). Nearly 400 people attended the conference. Mr. Song Jingwu, Vice President of CPAFFC, Mr. Jing Yonghui, Director General of Foreign Affairs Office of Zhejiang Province, Mr. Li Yifei, Secretary of the Communist Party of China Yiwu Municipal Committee, Mr. Sheng Qiuping, Mayor of Yiwu City, Mr. OKAMOTO TAMOTSU, President of CLAIR, Mr. PARK SUNG HWAN, President of GAK and other representatives of the local governments from China, Japan and Korea participated as guests.
Mr. Song Jingwu, Vice President of CPAFFC, Delivering a Speech at the Opening Ceremony
Vice President Song Jingwu delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. In the speech, he said, China, Japan and Korea are close neighbors, which share symbiontic traditional culture and benefit from each other through the economic cooperation. The exchanges and cooperation among the three countries’ local governments are facing with the important opportunities and have extensive space to be further developed. Such exchanges and cooperation will certainly play an important role in promoting the three countries’ economic development, social progress and cultural prosperity. The three countries’ local governments should cohere the wisdom and strength to promote the exchanges and cooperation among the local governments in a deeper and wider way, jointly making efforts in realizing the long-term, healthy and stable development of the trilateral ties.
Mr. OKAMOTO TAMOTSU, President of CLAIR, Delivering a Speech
Mr. Jin Yonghui, Mr. li Yifei, Mr. OKAMOTO TAMOTSU and Mr. PARK SUNG HWAN spoke highly of the conference. They said, as an important exchange platform for the mutual learning and common development, the conference has a great effect in deepening the mutual understanding of the three countries’ local governments, enhancing people’s friendship and promoting the mutually beneficial cooperation. They hope to take this conference as an opportunity to further improve the level of the local exchanges and cooperation among the three countries and to promote the trilateral ties development continuously, so as to benefit for the three countries’ peoples.
Mr. PARK SUNG HWAN, President of GAK, Delivering a speech
Under the theme of the sustainable exchanges among the cities and the urban internationalization development, Mayor Sheng Qiuping of Yiwu City, Vice Governor OSUGA YOSHIRO of Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan and Vice Mayor JUNG GYUNG JIN of Busanpo, Korea made speeches respectively. Twelve representatives from the three countries’ local governments had an in-depth discussion on developing the local economy, strengthening the cultural exchanges, promoting the tourism and other common concerned subjects. They also shared the successful experience with each other on actively developing the international exchanges and reached the series of consensus on further developing the local exchanges of the three countries. This exchange conference achieves a full success.
The Keynote Speech
The exchange conference was jointly organized by the CPAFFC, the CLAIR and GAK. It is held in each country by turns every year. With the theme of enhancing the friendship, the past conferences were held on the topics of how to develop the cooperation among the three countries’ local governments in the fields of the economy, trade, culture and youth. The previous conferences play an important role in promoting the mutual understanding, strengthening the friendly exchanges and expanding the pragmatic cooperation among the local governments of the three countries.
The 18th Exchange Conference of Friendly Cities among China, Japan and Korea will be held in Okayama, Japan in the next year.
The Site of the Conference
