The foreign delegations are headed by Patrick Murphy, governor of Cork County of Ireland, Miguel Riquelme, governor of Coahuila State, Mexico and Rachel Jacobs, President of the Homas Province Provincial Assembly, Namibia.

　　On behalf of the provincial party committee and the provincial government, Lou Qinjian expressed his warm welcome to all the guests. He said that this year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up and the 40th anniversary of Jiangsu's international friendship city exchange program. The vigorous development of international friendship city activities has benefited from the country’s reform and opening up, which has further promoted reform and opening up.

　　He said President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative has provided a major opportunity for us to deepen the cooperation with international friends. At present, Jiangsu has twinned with 317 friendly provinces and cities in foreign countries and forged friendly exchange programs with 423 foreign provinces or cities, ranking first in the country. The scope of cooperation has gradually expanded from economy and trade to education, culture, science and technology, health, tourism and other fields. Friendship city has become a bridge for Jiangsu to connect with the world, a bond to enhance friendship, a carrier for cooperation, and a window to showcase its achievements.

　　Lou noted that Jiangsu has a first-class business environment, solid industrial foundation, high-end talent support and broad market space. It has forged good cooperation ties with Cork County, Coahuila State and Homas Province resulting from and strong industrial complementarities and promising deepening cooperation and broad prospects.

　　The CPC Provincial chief said under the broad framework of the country's opening up and overall diplomacy, Jiangsu will work together with all parties to implement the important consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and the leaders of various countries, further promote high-level visits, expand exchanges, deepen pragmatic cooperation so as to ensure that the friendly relations will reach out to the hearts of the people, promote the well-being of people's livelihood and achieve shared prosperity.

　　Wu Zhenglong said that friends, whether old and new, are welcome to attend the 40th Anniversary Exchange and Cooperation Month of Jiangsu International Friendship City. At present, Jiangsu is standing at an important juncture for transformation, upgrading and high-quality development. We will take Xi Jinping's new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics as the guide, deepen the practice of new development concepts, and unswervingly deepen reform and expand opening up at a higher level so as to speed up the construction of new Jiangsu in the opening up.

　　Friendship city is an important carrier and platform for deepening regional exchanges and cooperation, the governor said, adding that Jiangsu will work together with all friendship cities to maintain economic globalization and multilateral trading system, further expand investment and trade cooperation, and jointly build and share the Belt and Road initiative, expand people-to-people exchanges, and work hand in hand and strive for mutual benefit and win-win in the new journey of promoting high-quality development in Jiangsu so as to ensure further cooperation and achieve greater development for the benefit of the people and a better future.

　　Patrick Murphy and other guests said that they cherish the friendly relations with Jiangsu and the exchanges and cooperation between the two sides have gradually deepened and achieved fruitful results. They hoped that this international friendship city exchange and cooperation month will be a new starting point for further deepening all-round and multi-field exchanges and cooperation so as to seek shared development and progress with Jiangsu.

　　(Source: ourjiangsu.com)