African city partners with China's Wenzhou city for better development

ACCRA -- Wenzhou, a city in East China's Zhejiang province has signed a sister-city relations pact with Ghana's Kumasi, the country's second largest city.

The new partnership is expected to open up businesses and boost trade between Kumasi, Ghana's fastest growing city and Wenzhou, one of the Zhejiang Province's economic and cultural centers.

The co-operation focuses on technology transfer, education and infrastructure, according to Xu Liyi, the Party Secretary of Wenzhou Municipal Committee, who visited the West African country recently.

Under the agreement, business persons from Kumasi and Wenzhou will be brought together to share ideas and explore ways to improve the business environment in both cities.

Additionally, the Wenzhou University and the Kumasi Technical University, together with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), will embark on exchange programs for students.

The Wenzhou University will also provide scholarships for selected students in Kumasi.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Kojo Bonsu, hoped the city would take advantage of the new partnership which is mutually beneficial.

"We are going to bring the business people in Kumasi and Wenzhou together to form a synergy. Chinese will bring technologies to Kumasi and help the city to develop," said Bonsu, who visited China a couple of months ago to seal the deal.

For Xu Liyi, the partnership will greatly improve the manufacturing and technology sectors of both cities as the economy of Wenzhou and Kumasi are highly complementary to each other.

"We can cooperate in different areas, including capital, human resource, technology and marketing. And we are also very happy to see that more and more Wenzhou businessmen are investing and doing business in Kumasi because of its business attraction," said Xu.