Africa-Press – Namibia. The Khomas region and China’s Jiangsu province on Monday signed an agreement to deepen developmental cooperation highlighted in their agreement.
This new chapter follows the signing of the deal on 19 June 2015, as well as another one between the Khomas Regional Council and the standing committee of Jiangsu Provincial People’s Congress on 20 October 2023.
Officiating at the event, Khomas governor Laura McLeod-Katjirua said the work plan will focus on six priority areas for the next five years.
“It is these two signed agreements that gave us the legitimate authority and absolute mandate to sign this envisaged five-year work plan to make our twinning partnership a more active and relevant force for our present and future development challenges as partners,” she said.
Among the focus areas are sectoral partnerships, scholarship and bursaries programmes, students and youth exchange programmes, policymakers and staff exchange programmes, trades and investment promotion, and community empowerment programmes.
She urged all leading agents of existing sectoral partnership in the fields of health, education, sports, community development and investment to make the fruits of the ties of partnership more tangible to motivate others to emulate the partnership.
“I don’t want it to be seen and heard as a song on the lips of the policymakers because we have done our part properly and fair.
The ball is now in the court of our administrators, the immediate implementers of these development initiatives to keep this wheel moving in the right direction,” the politician said.
The Khomas Regional Council was represented by chief regional officer Clement Mafwila, while Ma Xin inked on Jiangsu’s behalf.
The two institutions will jointly shoulder the responsibility to set out the time-framed modalities of implementation and ensure the joint effective and efficient coordination, supervision as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of all identified activities in the prioritised targeted areas.
Speaking through an interpreter, Jiangsu governor Xin,said the work-plan aims to promote mutual understanding and consolidate friendly cooperation between the two regions.
The governor further said the friendship between the two parties has gone from strength to strength over the past two years.
Xin said the work-plan will serve as a guide for implementing and promoting trade cooperation as well as strengthening their exchange programmes in areas of education, training, health, culture, sports and technology.
Jiangsu is renowned for its economic prosperity, ranking second in terms of contribution to the Chinese gross domestic product at more than 12 trillion yuan [US$1.74 trillion] in 2023.
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