YINCHUAN (Ningxia), March 16 (Bernama) — The Ningxia Hui autonomous region in China has expressed its desire for its capital city of Yinchuan to establish a sister city partnership with an Indonesian city, ANTARA quoted an official as saying Friday.
“On behalf of Ningxia’s foreign affairs office, we express our desire to establish a sister city relationship with one of Indonesia’s cities,” Zhang Yexing, vice director general of Ningxia’s foreign affairs office, told journalists yesterday.
The Hui ethnics form the majority of the population in Ningxia, one of China’s five autonomous regions and inhabited by 6.3 million people, of whom 2.3 million are Hui Muslims. There are some 4,000 mosques in Ningxia.
Yexing said the Ningxia government is eager to establish cooperation in Halal food production with its sister city in Indonesia.
He said the Chinese government has designated Ningxia as a Halal food hub, with an office dealing with Halal food certification services in the province.
“We want to look for a city that could complement Yinchuan. We want to establish cooperation with a city that provides Halal food in Indonesia,” said Yexing.
The official expressed hope that Yinchuan and its Indonesian sister city would one day export Halal food products to respective regions and other countries as well.
Ningxia has developed trading partnerships with more than 120 countries and entered into sister city relationships with 23 provinces from around the world.
Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to make a state visit to Beijing on March 22-24 along with a 30-strong business delegation.
— BERNAMA
