A team of journalists visited Zibo city – located in East China's Shandong province on July 12 – to explore its achievements in promoting foreign exchanges and cooperation.
This was part of a series of activities to welcome the upcoming 20th CPC National Congress, which will be held in Beijing in the second half of the year.
They visited the Qi Culture Museum and the Zibo Comprehensive Bonded Zone.
The Qi Culture Museum is located in the Linzi district of Zibo. [Photo/Shandong Business Daily]
"Qi culture is an important source and part of excellent Chinese traditional culture," said Ma Qingguo, head of the museum.
Zibo was the capital of the ancient Qi state, which was one of the most powerful states during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC) and the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). The identity of Qi culture is represented by the Great Wall of Qi and cuju, a sport played in ancient times that distinctly resembled modern soccer.
Ma used to promote cuju to Germany – one of the giants of the modern game – to proudly tell the world that Zibo in China was the birthplace of soccer.
To promote cuju, Zibo holds a series of events every year, such as the Qi Culture Festival and the World Football Culture Summit Forum – held in China and in the UK by turns – and a Sino-British cuju contest.
In addition, Zibo has also established good cooperative relations with the Asian Football Confederation and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, the Switzerland-based international governing body of world association football. Moving forward, it plans to boost its exchanges with Canada and other countries.
An exterior view of the Zibo Comprehensive Bonded Zone. [Photo/WeChat account: zbgxqxcxwzx]
In the Zibo Comprehensive Bonded Zone, the journalists learned that it took only one year for the facility to be built – from the examination and approval of the construction plans to the assessments of its operations – creating the fastest record among zones being constructed at that time in China.
Yu Shujie, deputy director of the zone, told the visiting media that the foreign affairs office of the Zibo municipal government had assisted companies at home and abroad to deepen their cooperation.
For example, it organized a matchmaking video meeting for local company – Odes Industry Co Ltd – and two Russian counterpart enterprises.
These online meetings, Yu added, had help empower the development of local companies when they were faced with the complicated and challenging domestic and international environment this year.
