On April 16, Ningxia-Marlborough international friendship region relationship won the Award for the Best Commercial Project at the Sister Cities New Zealand 2021 Annual Conference in Wellington.

Ningxia and Marlborough of New Zealand have witnessed frequent mutual visits since they established international friendship region relationship in September 2017. The bilateral exchanges have delivered fruitful results in education, agriculture and wine industry, especially in viticulture and professional training. Two mayors of Marlborough visited Ningxia in succession. The incumbent mayor John Leggett attended the Third China-Arab States Expo in Ningxia in September of 2017 and signed the agreement on establishing international friendship region relationship. The joint training program of wine professionals between Ningxia University and Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology is being advanced steadily. Ningxia’s Xige Estate has been built into a demonstration winery of the cooperation between the two wine producing regions thanks to their joint efforts since 2017. The exchanges and cooperation on wine making equipment, technologies and personnel training have injected fresh impetus into the innovative development of Ningxia’s wine industry. 

For the next step, Ningxia Foreign Affairs Office will bring into full play its advantages and make good use of the platform set by international friendship region relationship, so as to facilitate the high-quality development of Ningxia’s nine key industries. Efforts will be made to tap into the industrial cooperation potential with targeted measures and expand cooperation in a bid to realize more win-win cooperation.