On April 19th, the Philippines-China Mayors Dialogue, hosted by CPAFFC and sponsored by Guangdong People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries,was held in Guangzhou city. Vice President Hu Sishe of CPAFFC, Mr. Alan Cayatano, Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the Philippines, Mrs. Maria Lanni Cayatano, Chairman of the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP) and Mayor of Taguig city attended and addressed at the dialogue. City leaders from Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Nanning, Haikou, Dezhou, Foshan, Jiangmen of China and Mayors from the cities of Zamboanga, Munoz, Malolos, Tagbilaran and Angeles of the Philippines participated in the dialogue.

Vice President Hu said in his speech that the city-to-city and people-to-people diplomatic work plays an important role in enhancing the foundation of public opinion for the China-Philippines relations. CPAFFC is willing to establish the friendly and cooperative relations with LCP, promote the city-to-city exchange and cooperation thus to develop more friendship provinces or cities between the two countries.

Mr. Cayatano sang a high praise on the contribution by the people-to-people exchanges for the two countries relations and hoped the cities to enhance the cooperation in economic and trade, science and technology, infrastructure, E-Government, E-Business and so on.

During the dialogue, the representatives from two sides delivered speeches and held discussions on the topics of tourism and city governance respectively with the theme of “Inherit the traditional friendship” and “Enhance the pragmatic cooperation”. The participants expressed willingness to strengthen the people-to-people exchange, mutual-learning on the city’s innovative development, thus to inject vigor to the China-Philippines local government cooperation and push forward the development of bilateral relations.