Sun Jin

florencesun@163.com

SHENZHEN Mayor Qin Weizhong led a city government delegation on a three-day visit to Spain from Thursday to Saturday to push forward in-depth cooperation between governments, enterprises and research institutes on both sides in a bid to increase Shenzhen’s contribution to advancing China’s higher-level opening up.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Spain. The delegation chose Spain as the first stop of their official overseas visits.

The delegation attended the China (Shenzhen)-Spain (Madrid) Economic and Trade Cooperation and Exchange Conference in Madrid on Thursday.

Wu Haitao, Chinese ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Spain; Andorra   Victor Francos Diaz, secretary-general of the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports; and  Laura Jarillo, D.D.G. of Asia, Non-European Union Europe and Oceania, attended the conference. Many world-renowned Spanish enterprises and notable industry associations like Iberia Airlines, Telefónica, fashion icon Lottusse, and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce were also present at the conference. At the conference, Shenzhen and Spanish companies signed economic and trade agreements worth 1 billion euros (US$1.06 billion) in fields such as internet, new energy, culture, sports, and fintech.

In a speech at the conference, Qin said as China and Spain celebrate the milestone 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relations this year, Shenzhen will earnestly implement the important consensus reached by the two countries’ top leaders, and strengthen all-round cooperation with Spain in investment and trade, technological innovation, industrial development, finance, energy, culture, sports and tourism. Shenzhen will further contribute to promoting  the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Spain in the new era.

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