The past 37 years have witnessed the extraordinary progress of the International Friendship City Activities of China. Dating back to 1973, it has only established ties with one sister-city; however, it enjoyed friendship with 1600 cities in 2009 and the total number of sister-cities is steadily increasing to 2000. Generally speaking, it has developed from bilateral cooperation to multilateral cooperation, from political cooperation to all-round in economy, in culture and in social sector, and expanded from inter-government cooperation to civil exchanges.
Taking Hunan as an example, it has already set up ties with 54 sister-cities from 24 countries across five continents, and has formed friendly partnerships and trade partnerships with 109 cities, besides, universities of the province also have more than 400 sister schools. Hunan has scored impressive achievements in all the aspects mentioned above. Since the friendship city relationship established between Changsha and Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo in 1982, which is also the first friendship city relationship set up by Hunan, the development of Hunan's Friendship Cities has experienced the transformation from few to many, from one point to a whole area, and from general communication to substantial association.
Hunan's Sister CitiesThe exhibition boards showcase the historical development of Hunan International Friendship Cities in the recent 28 years, starting from the first one in 1982 to the 54th one at present, covering five continents and 24 countries. Besides, Hunan has also set up 109 friendly cooperative partnerships or economic and trade cooperative partnerships with other provinces or cities, counties abroad, established over 400 friendly relations with universities and colleges abroad, and signed 25 letters of intent to become friendship cities.
It is represented on the board that Hunan has carried out diverse exchanges and cooperation with friendly cities in such areas as economy and trade, science and technology, culture, education, etc.