Ambassador Le Gall visits Victoria’ sister city in China |27 December 2007

This working visit, which was at the invitation of Haikou’s Foreign Affairs Office, was a follow-up to both President James Michel’s visit to Haikou in November 2006, after the China-Africa Summit, and the visit in July this year of a delegation from Haikou led by Mr Chen Ci, secretary general of Haikou Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, a visit during which Victoria and Haikou signed a twinning agreement. According to a communiqué from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Le Gall’s visit coincided with the launching of the 10th China (Hainan) Agricultural Trade Fair.

Ambassador Le Gall had several opportunities to meet with secretary general Chen Ci and Mayor Tangxian Xu.
A series of discussions with representatives from the tourism, education, agriculture, fisheries and information sectors was also organized by Haikou’s Foreign Affairs Office. “It enabled the two sides to move one significant step further in the identification of projects that could be implemented in the framework of the twinning agreement, with a view to making it fully operational on the occasion of the visit to Haikou of Mayor Antoinette Alexis around April next year,” the communiqué said.

Haikou has a population of over 1.6 million and a coastline of 131 km. It shares many similarities with Seychelles, among which a tropical weather, the excellent quality of air and water, parks and other green lands that cover 42% of the city area.

Haikou is also a popular tourist destination with a booming fisheries industry and a renowned expertise in university studies related to tropical agriculture.

It has been selected by the World Health Organization (WHO) as China’s first trial city for the “World Healthy Cities” programme.