Sichuan, Bavaria Hold High-level Dialogue

On February 23, the 2022 Sichuan-Bavaria High-level Dialogue was held in Chengdu. Via video link, the two sides reviewed their cooperation and exchanges in recent years and sought new cooperation opportunities for speeding up further efforts to forge an official friendly provincial-level relationship. The attendees included more than 30 representatives of local governments, enterprises and agencies. Li Yunze, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Vice Governor of the People's Government of Sichuan Province attended and addressed the meeting.

In his speech, Li pointed out that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany, China has been Germany's largest trading partner for five consecutive years, and the bilateral economic and trade cooperation achieved growth despite the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the memorandum of establishing a friendly and cooperative relationship was officially signed by Sichuan and Bavaria in 2017, the two sides have reached broad consensus in such fields as trade, investment, scientific and technological innovation, advanced manufacturing, culture, tourism and education, and the areas of cooperation have been expanded continuously. Chengdu, Neijiang and Guangyuan have developed friendly and cooperative relationships with Nuremberg, Fürth and Landshut respectively, and the results of friendly exchanges have continued to benefit more.

At the meeting, the government and enterprise representatives of the two sides delivered speeches to exchange their views, and shared information on the cooperation projects and the cooperation plans. In terms of transportation and logistics, both sides will give full play to to their advantages as air freight and logistics hubs, and further deepen cooperation through air freight and China-Europe freight trains. Concerning carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, Sichuan and Bavarian enterprises will seize opportunities and complement each other, so as to deepen cooperation in green and low-carbon industries, especially in hydrogen energy. They said that starting from this meeting, Sichuan and Bavaria will continuously remove barriers in the channels for exchanges, and jointly promote more major high-quality projects to be implemented in Sichuan, thus achieving mutual benefits and win-win outcomes.

In order to further consolidate and deepen Sichuan-Bavaria pragmatic cooperation, after several discussions between the Foreign Affairs Office of Sichuan Province and the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, the two sides have established an annual dialogue mechanism for regular exchanges and cooperation. They will build more platforms for exchanges and cooperation, thus accelerating the efforts to forge a formal and friendly provincial-level relationship.

(Source:The People's Government of Sichuan Province)