Consul General Zheng Xiyuan Attends Chinese New Year Celebration Hosted by Leeds City Council

2020-02-03 17:59

On 21st January 2020, Consul General Zheng Xiyuan travelled to Leeds upon invitation to attend the Chinese New Year Celebration and Chinese Business Awards Ceremony jointly hosted by the City Council and Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership. Consul Lyu Xiaomei accompanied him.

Consul General Zheng thanked Leeds City Council for caring about local Chinese communities and promoting Chinese culture locally, and appreciated the action of Leeds City Council for taking the lead in hosting Chinese New Year celebrations in Northern England to encourage social integration. He spoke highly of the City Council for actively responding to the concerns of the Consulate General by vigorously launching the project of ‘Chinese Overseas Student Ambassador’ to forge a platform for Sino-British cooperation and enrich the experience of overseas students. He congratulated local univeristies and enterprises on their fruitful cooperation with China in 2019 and looked forward to seeing Leeds actively carry out cooperation with China taking advantage of their financial and professional services and revive its historical glory in the new round of scientific and technological revolution.

Councillor Blake, Leeds City Council leader, proudly recalled the 32 years of history of the twinning of Leeds and Hangzhou and her three personal visits to China. She expressed that Leeds City Council and the Local Enterprise Partnership recognized the tremendous potential in cooperating with China for mutual benefit. Last year the City Council specially set up the Visit Leeds China Forum, hoping to gather all forces to encourage local communities to participate in exchanges and cooperation with China, to promote Sino-British cultural exchanges and youth exchanges whilst further strengthening ongoing economic and trade cooperation and to rapidly raise the profile of Leeds in China.

About 100 representatives from local companies, universities, investing Chinese companies and Chinese community attended the celebration. Huawei’s office in Greater Manchester, Hainan Airlines UK and Bank of China Manchester Branch were also invited by the Consulate General to attend the event and promote their business.