Belgium: For his first post-Covid mission, the Ambassador of Belgium to China, Jan Hoogmartens visited Chongqing last week with a delegation of representatives from the three Belgian regions, Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, the Province of Antwerp, Ghent University, and Agricultural Attachée.
Ambassador Jan Hoogmartens was received by the Mayor of the Municipality of Chongqing Hu Henghua. They discussed successful cooperation in the fields of logistics, agriculture, and academia and explored areas of further cooperation, such as life sciences and biotechnologies.
In the evening, the Ambassador had the pleasure of attending the premiere of the symphony composed by the Belgian artist, composer, pianist and conductor Peter Ritzen at the Guotai Arts Centre. Peter Ritzen, educated in Ghent, translated his impressions of China into his symphonic work “Love for China”. Art has no borders and truly contributes to building bridges between China and Belgium.
Trade and Investment opportunities were also on the agenda, and companies from Chongqing had a chance to discover what Belgium has to offer during the Chongqing-Belgium Business and Industry Seminar, together with representatives of municipal and district governments, enterprises and commercial associations.
The representatives of AWEX (Didier Denayer, Trade, Technology and Investment Consul), FIT (Frank Van Eynde, Economic and Commercial Consul) and HUB. Brussels (Han Dandan, Investment and Tourism Officer) and all parties discussed the existing and potential collaboration in life sciences, logistics, agricultural products and food and beverage.
The 10+ year anniversary of the sister-city relations between Antwerp and Chongqing was also high on the agenda. Over the past decade, many great collaborations have taken place between the two regions. Vice-president of Chongqing University, Liu Hanlong, shared with our delegation the successes of the longstanding partnership between the University of Antwerp and Chongqing University.
Our delegation also got to experience how these cooperations take place first-hand when they witnessed the signing of a letter of intent between the Science Park of the University of Antwerp and Dadi (International) Life Science Park inthe Liangjiang.
As per tradition, a Meet and Greet with Belgians and friends of Belgium in Chongqing were held. This was a great opportunity to reconnect with the Belgian community in Chongqing and learn first-hand from the people linking our two countries. Of course, accompanied by a Belgian beer and Belgian fries!
With the reopening of the borders, we hope that the official and unofficial contact between Belgium and Chongqing will increase and that our mutually beneficial collaboration will flourish even more in the coming years. New Area of Chongqing
