From November 12th to 21st, Ma Xuming, Mayor of Yichang and Deputy Secretary of Yichang Municipal CPC Committee, with his delegation, visited Germany, Turkey and Israel at the invitation of Municipal Government of Karlsruhe City, Photoelectronic Industry Association of Berlin, Germany, Foreign Economic Relations Committee of Turkey and Agricultural Technology Research Institute of Israel. During the visit, Ma and the delegation had in-depth communication and negotiation with relative organizations of three countries, achieving a series of cooperation intentions on the development of high and new technology industry.

　　During the visit in Germany, Ma met with Wen Zhenshun, Chinese Consul General in Frankfurt, Germany, and introduced the development of Yichang and its friendly relationship with Ludwigsburg County and Karlsruhe City of Germany. Wen said that the consulate-general would offer more support and assistance on friendly intercity exchanges, hi-tech zone cooperation and transformation of hi-tech achievements.

　　Under the arrangement of German-Chinese Friendship Association, Ma paid a special visit to Karlsruhe City, a city renowned for its science and technology in Germany, and met with Jagger, Executive Deputy Mayor. Both sides reached an agreement on building the cooperative partnership between Yichang and Karlsruhe City, exchanging the entrepreneurs delegation to investigate and promote the cooperation and transformation of research and development results.

　　At Frank Optical Product Company in Germany, Ma learned such world-leading research and development in science and technology as the optical fiber cable of high-energy laser transmission and sterile laser cable. Both parties negotiated about the market transformation and cooperative production in Yichang, reaching the cooperative intentions.

　　During the visit in Turkey, Ma met with Mr. Yavuz Onay, Vice Chairman of Foreign Economic Relations Committee of Turkey, Chairman of Sino-Turkey Chamber of Commerce. Through a video, Mr. Onay introduced the advanced manufacturing of Turkey to Ma. Ma expressed his hope that both sides could further deepen understanding, enhance mutual trust and enlarge the scale of trade exchanges and cooperation.

　　During the visit in Israel, Ma met with Mr. Yair Shamir, Minister of Agriculture of Israel, who expressed that the Israeli Government always pays much attention to the friendly relationship with China, and the Ministry of Agriculture would offer great supports on the economic cooperation between the Israel Academy of Agricultural Science and Yichang.

　　Under the circumstance of extreme drought, Israel strives to develop the hi-tech agriculture with the dedication to research and development of advanced technology, so that its products can not only meet the domestic demands, but also be exported in large volumes to European market. What impressed the Chinese delegation was its concept of modern agricultural development. Through negotiation, both sides decided to carry out all-around cooperation of citrus, grapes, pomegranate, strawberry and aquatic products. The Israel Academy of Agricultural Science will send experts to Yichang to investigate and help to offer verifications of the earlier stage on the setup of Hi-tech Agricultural Demonstration Park in Yichang and promote industrialization of agricultural product research and development results at late November.

　　Ma concluded that this visit, with the themes of openness, cooperation, innovation and development, offered us a good chance to see and understand comprehensively the development of hi-tech industry in developed countries, and witnessed the distance between the world’s first-class scientific research level and that of Yichang. All this could contribute to solving the problem of lacking hi-tech projects though with enough capitals and markets, and to providing new ways to promote adjustment, transformation and upgrading of the economic structure in Yichang. (Correspondent Liu Zhenhua, Reporter Zheng Guanghua )