From November 11 to 13 in Chengdu, Shi Xiaolin, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Governor of the People's Government of Sichuan Province, met separately with Wayne Brown, Mayor of Auckland, New Zealand, Hidehiko Yuzaki, Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, Abdelouahed El-Ansari, President of the Fez-Meknes Region, Morocco, and Sheal Mulyata, Provincial Minister of Lusaka Province, Zambia, who were attending the 2024 Sichuan International Friendship Cities Cooperation and Development Conference (SIFC).

On behalf of the provincial government, Shi Xiaolin expressed welcome and gratitude to the distinguished guests and their delegations to attend the SIFC in Sichuan. She stated that friendship cities build bridges for exchange and cooperation. In recent years, Sichuan has witnessed a growing closeness in the interactions with its friendship cities, showcasing a positive trend in mutually beneficial cooperation. This conference unites us across vast distances in Sichuan, facilitating our profound dialogue and consensus-building. It not only reinforces the enduring bonds between Sichuan and its friendship cities but also fosters collaborative linkages among them. It is hoped that with the strategic leadership of President Xi Jinping and leaders from various countries, we will leverage this conference as a fresh start, join hands to grasp emerging opportunities and confront the new challenges of globalization, focus on areas such as advancing new quality productive forces and green, low-carbon development, and strengthen collaboration in science, technology, and industry. It is hoped that we will construct interconnected networks, create platforms for enhancing cooperation, and steadily increase the scale of economic and trade investments. We need to thoroughly tap into the collaborative potential in sectors like education, culture, tourism, and sports, promote personnel interactions, facilitate student exchanges, and encourage youth communication. We expect all to take practical initiatives to effectively deliver the conference's outcomes, strive for greater win-win development, and thus, significantly contribute to strengthening international friendships and fostering the exchange and mutual learning among civilizations.

Wayne Brown, Hidehiko Yuzaki, Abdelouahed El-Ansari, and Sheal Mulyata extended their congratulations on the hosting of the SIFC. They noted that their visit deepened their understanding of Sichuan's conducive environment for development and its promising future. They are convinced that there is significant potential for future cooperation between our regions. They hope to use this conference as a catalyst to intensify interactions and engagements across all levels of friendship-city relationships, foster higher-level, more profound, and broader cooperation in multiple domains, enhance mutual understanding among our people and improve their well-being, and elevate the bilateral friendly relations to a new height.

Relevant leading officials from Auckland, Hiroshima Prefecture, Fez-Meknes Region, and Lusaka Province; Pubu Dunzhu, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Vice Governor of the People's Government of Sichuan Province; and Zeng Qing, Secretary-General of the People's Government of Sichuan Province, along with others, participated in the associated meetings.