Ballarat hosts leaders of Chinese friendship city

LOCAL government leaders of Ballarat’s Chinese friendship city, Yangzhou, visited last Thursday.

Yangzhou Municipal Government Vice-Mayor, Yu Ting was accompanied by council representatives from the areas of government, economy, tourism and culture, as they toured the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, Sovereign Hill, the Gold Museum and the Town Hall.

Mr Ting was pleased to be in Ballarat, having welcomed a Victorian delegation including City of Ballarat Deputy Mayor, Cr Jim Rinaldi, Director of Innovation and Organisational Improvement, Cameron Cahill, and Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Sally Capp to their city last May.

“The visit from the Victorian state and council was a friendship celebration. We’re looking forward to having further discussions about our relationship, and what we can do between our two cities,” he said.

“Being introduced to the history of Ballarat gives us an opportunity to introduce it to our Yangzhou city. Yangzhou has recently become a city of high technology, an innovative city, so we can introduce further cooperative work in that area.”

Yangzhou was the original home of two of China’s national leaders, it has a 2500-year-old history, and is known as one of the country’s major heritage cities. Mr Ting was excited to explore the Botanical Gardens ahead of the 2021 Yangzhou World Horticulture Expo.

“We strongly believe we can learn lots from Ballarat in this area,” Mr Ting said.

City of Ballarat Mayor Cr Samantha McIntosh visited the friendship city in 2013. She said council has learnt so much from the way Yangzhou operates and the ongoing relationship is valuable.

“This visit is an opportunity to further strengthen cooperation between our two cities,” she said. “It is a wonderful honour to be able to welcome the delegates. The friendship agreement we have with Yangzhou is very important to us.

“We have learnt so much looking at their new industrial development area, and that has helped us plan and deliver a very successful Ballarat West Employment Zone.”

The Mayor was pleased to return the warm hospitality Yangzhou’s municipality had shown council representatives two months ago.

“We hope to continue some of the productive discussions already held with Cr Rinaldi and Mr Cahill around mutual cultural and tourism benefits for both cities,” Cr McIntosh said.

“We really do want to say thank you and extend a further invitation for them to come back any time.”