(Reporter He Guanying and correspondent Zhou Jun)On March 30th, it is learned from the municipal alien work meeting that great efforts will be made in Yichang this year to establish the global ties for city-to-city cooperation and development of overseas markets for “going out” of Yichang’s advantages .

　　Yichang has established sister city ties with 8 cities of 7 countries and signed letters of intent for friendships, friendly cooperation agreements or cooperation memorandums with more than 20 alien cities. This year, the whole municipality including all the urban districts and the counties will achieve a breakthrough in the establishment of the network of sister city ties and give a full play to the dominant role of the communicationand cooperation between sister cities through persistently deepening the exchanges with sister cities, with friendship with the sister cities further expanded and a normalized liaison mechanism developed.