A Lao delegation visits Hunan

On Aug 21, Xu Shousheng, the governor of Hunan province met with a delegation headed by vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Laos, PDR Bounkeut Sangsomsak. The delegation visited Changsha to attend the founding ceremony of the Asia-Europe Water Resources Research and Utilization Center.

Xu Shousheng extended a warm welcome to the visiting guests and introduced the basic information of Hunan province. He said Hunan is the hometown of Mao Zedong, a great statesman in Chinese history and it now enjoys sound and fast economic development.

In recent years, as the launch of ASEAN Free Trade Area, Hunan and ASEAN enjoyed well-grounded and promising cooperation in both export and investment. He expected both sides to recognize their respective advantages and produce positive results.

Xu added that Hunan is relatively superior in non-ferrous metal, ferrous metal, engineering machinery and new industrial areas. It could extend and deepen cooperation in terms of the tourism industry and personnel training to make greater contributions to their long-standing friendship.

Bounkeut Sangsomsak is impressed by the Hunan people's hospitality and city planning. He said the China-Laos friendship has a long history and their trade and economic cooperation is closely related to each other. Laos has introduced the largest amount of foreign investment from China.

In Laos, people can watch Chinese TV programs everyday. He hoped the partnership between Hunan and Laos can take a step forward and invited Hunan-based enterprises to the mining and hydropower fields in Laos. He also called for accelerated aviation cooperation by opening direct flights between the two sites.