On May 5, Zhou Ji, member of the standing committee of the Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, met Aziz Macual，the Moroccan ambassador to China, and other foreign envoys and representatives of the participants, who joined the Yichang Travel of 2019 Tea International Purchasers. Zhang Jiasheng, deputy secretary of Municipal Party Committee and mayor, attended the meeting.

　　On behalf of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee, the provincial government, the Yichang Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government as well as the people of the whole city, Zhou Ji welcomed Aziz Macual and his group, and briefly introduced the economic and social development in Hubei and Yichang. He said that Yichang, with its rich history and culture and abundant potential resources, is a city with the largest installed hydropower capacity in the world, and is also a provincial sub-central city in Hubei province and a regional central city supported by the country in its construction. At present, Yichang is seizing the opportunity of China’s progressive development from east to west and from coast to inland, actively learning from the experiences of advanced cities at home and abroad, and promoting a higher level of opening-up to the outside world. He hoped that all diplomatic envoys and guests visit more in Yichang to promote mutual understanding and friendship, support its development and deepen exchanges and cooperation in such fields as tea industry, tourism, chemical industry and clean energy. The city will further study and implement the important spirit of the speech made by President Xi Jinping on expanding opening to the outside world at the opening ceremony of the second “the Belt and Road Initiative” International Cooperation Summit Forum, innovate its institutional mechanism, carry out a series of major reform and opening-up measures, and realize mutual benefit and win-win outcome as well as common development.

　　Aziz Macual said that it is his third visit to Yichang and he gains something new in each visit. “The tea and chemical industries are developing well in Yichang which has abundant hydropower resources and close economic and trade ties with Morocco. With a huge tea consumption market and plentiful clean resources such as water and wind energy, Morocco has the richest phosphorite resources in the world. The initiative to jointly build ‘the Belt and Road’ has paved a new way for practical cooperation of both countries. We will further deepen commercial and cultural exchanges with Yichang and push forward more fruitful cooperation in the fields like tea, chemical industry and clean energy.”

　　Those who also attended the meeting include Kim Yong-Jin, South Korean Consul General to Wuhan, Kang Weihong, member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and member of the French-Chinese Fund Steering Committee as well as Ambassadorial Adviser to Morocco, Xu Yun, deputy General Manager of Hubei Branch of China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation, Liu Chuanwu, Chairman of Huahe International Business Consultancy, Sandoian Marina, Chairman of Armenian Sandoian Investment and Trade Co., Ltd., and other leaders of the city including Zhou Qing, Zhou Zhengying, Liu Hongfu and Tan Yeming. (Reporter: Lei Pengcheng)