China's Ningxia Province Wants To Have Sister City Coop With RI

Yinchuan, Ningxia, March 16 (ANTARA) - Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China wants its capital city of Yinchuan to establish sister city cooperation with an Indonesian city, a Ningxia official said. "On behalf of Ningxia`s foreign affairs office, we express our desire to establish sister city cooperation with one of Indonesia`s city," Zhang Yexing, the vice director general of Ningxia`s foreign affairs office, told Indonesia`s journalists here on Thursday. The majority population of Ningxia is Hui Muslim people and therefore the local government is eager to establish cooperation in Halal food with Indonesia`s city, he said, adding that there are around 4,000 mosques in Ningxia. The Chinese government has designated Ningxia as a Halal food hub, and the province has a special office to deal with Halal food certification services, he said. "We want to look for a city that could be complementary to Yinchuan. We want to establish cooperation with a city that has a lot of Halal food in Indonesia," he said. He hopes that one day Yinchuan and its Indonesia`s sister city could mutually issue Halal certificates and export each other food to respective regions as well as to other countries. Ningxia has developed trading and friendship relationship with more than 120 countries and established sister city cooperation with 23 provinces in the world. Zhang Yexing also invited Indonesia`s tourists to visit Ningxia which is rich in tourism resources such as ancient civilization of Yellow River, Hui ethnic customs, part of the Chinese famous Great Wall, and remnants of Xixia dynasty. Ningxia is one of China`s five autonomous regions and inhabited by 6.3 million people, including around 2.3 million of Hui Muslims. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is scheduled to make a state visit to Beijing on March 22-24, 2012, along with a 30-strong business delegation.