ILOILO City – The Foreign Affairs Office of Hainan province in China considers entering into a “sisterhood agreement” with this city, a city government official said.
Ritchel Gavan, head of the Local Economic and Investment Promotion Office, had a two-week intensive training on the Tropical Agriculture Advanced Study and Research Program in the Chinese province.
Iloilo City was the only local government unit in the Philippines invited to the program because of the plan for the sisterhood, Gavan said Tuesday.
Twenty participants from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Micronesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and the Philippines gathered for the training program.
Being a “center of excellence” in education is one of the reasons Hainan would want Iloilo City to be a sister city, said Gavan.
Hainan considers sending students to this city to learn English, and this means business for schools and employment for local teachers, Gavan said.
According to Gavan, the Chinese province is being positioned as a special economic zone and their government is working on making it a “free port zone.”
“There is a demand to learn English [among people there] because they are opening up,” said the city hall official.
Moreover, Gavan said, partnering with Hainan would mean increased tourism arrivals in this highly urbanized city.
Hainan “would also want to see other areas of cooperation aside from agribusiness,” the city government official said.
The Local Economic Investment and Promotion Office will wait for the Foreign Affairs Office of Hainan province to send a letter with regard to their intent to have the sisterhood agreement, she said. (With a report from Philippine News Agency/PN)
