SHENZHEN, an opening-up international metropolis, is always willing to exchange and cooperate with cities from all over the world. By the end of 2017, it has forged friendship with 85 foreign cities from 55 countries, among which 22 are Shenzhen’s friendship cities and 63 are friendly-exchange cities.

In 2017, Shenzhen has participated in several events held in some of those cities in order to further boost the communication and cooperation with them.

In March and November in 2017, the mayor of Tsukuba City in Japan visited Shenzhen with a delegation. The two sides reached a consensus on strengthening exchanges and cooperation in science and technology. The delegation also visited many of Shenzhen’s well-known high-tech enterprises, including Huawei, Tencent and DJI and reached a cooperation agreement on the overseas innovation center with Tianan Cyber Park.

From July to August 2017, the Foreign Affairs Office of Shenzhen Municipal Government helped promote exchanges and cooperation between the city with Scotland, the U.K. and the Nuremberg, Germany in the areas of economy, trade and culture. In June, the office arranged the delegation of Bao’an District to attend a business promotion conference held in Nuremberg and Hannover.

The office arranged a delegation of the city’s culture, sports and tourism authorities to participate in the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and two wonderful performances — “China new town · Shenzhen new voice” and “Cantonese opera: Macbeth” — were staged there.

Shenzhen also invited its friendship cities to showcase their splendid culture and meet for the future cooperation.

The 6th Shenzhen International Friendship Cities Culture and Art Week was held Nov. 28 last year. The 11-day event saw 11 international art troupes from nine countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, Bulgaria, Israel and South Korea to perform and exchange ideas.  (Nina Liu)