LAHORE - The Punjab government is likely to sign an agreement of sister city relation between Chengdu and Lahore on Friday in the provincial metropolis, it has been learnt on Thursday.
The Lahore administrator and the Chengdu Mayor will sign the agreement while CM Punjab Shabaz Sharif, ministers, secretaries and other notables will be present on the occasion.
One of the participants of meeting conditioning anonymity said the Secretary Local Government and Community Development chaired a high level meeting regarding visit of Chengdu Mayor (China) Mr Tang Liangzhi. The other participants included Commission Lahore, CCPO Lahore, Additional Secretary Punjab Assembly, ADC Lahore, DG PITB and senior officers.
Besides attending the signing ceremony, the Mayor Mr Tang Liangzhi will also visit historic places like Badshahi Mosque, Lahore Fort and Lahore Museum. The mayor will also visit Governor House to call on the governor and participate in gift exchange ceremony there. The mayor will also have a ride on Metro Bus.
The exchange of documents will be held at a ceremony at Islamabad on arrival of President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping. A full dress rehearsal will be held at Islamabad on Friday evening in this regard.
It is relevant to mention that in March, Tang Liangzhi, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Chengdu Municipal Committee and Mayor of Chengdu had held meetings with Masood Khalid, Pakistan’s ambassador to China and Intel Corp’s vice president Mr Robin Martin respectively.
Mr Tang and Mr Khalid, this March, had an in-depth talk on several important issues and reached consensuses on expanding platforms for mutual exchange and promoting innovative cooperation modes in the fields of trade, education, culture and tourism.
Ambassador Masood Khalid had also called on the President of the Sichuan University besides doing detailed interaction with Chinese scholars conducting research on various aspects of Pakistan-China relations, under the umbrella of Pakistan Study Centre, Sichuan University.
Guangdong and Punjab have agreed to launch a plan of bilateral exchange and cooperation and to establish sister province relations and create mechanism for its implementation and to maintain regular contacts between the designated authorities.
According to the agreement, the plan is to carry out cooperation in the fields of education, culture, sports, youth affairs, urban planning, waste water management, infrastructure, environment, public health and exchange of trade and commercial delegations.