ILOILO City – The Hainan Foreign Affairs of China is eyeing to establish a sisterhood agreement with Iloilo City, according to the head of the city’s Local Economic Investment and Promotion Office (LEIPO).
Following her two-week intensive training on Tropical Agriculture Advanced Study and Research in China, Ritchel Gavan said Iloilo City was the only Philippine local government unit invited to the program because of that consideration.
The training gathered 20 participants from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Micronesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
“There are other areas for economic cooperation,” she said.
Hainan is being positioned as a special economic zone in China.
“They are also working on making it as a free port zone. There is a demand to learn English because they are opening up,” said Gavan.
These are some reasons why they wanted to establish the agreement with the city, she added.
In education, Iloilo City is a “center of excellence”, said Gavan.
This would mean employment for local teachers and business for schools because Hainan would be sending their students to learn English in Iloilo, she stressed.
Also, it could boost tourism arrival in this highly-urbanized city because Hainan has the largest overseas Chinese.
“They want to see other areas of cooperation apart from agribusiness,” she said. (PNA
