A delegation from the city of Fuzhou visited the San Francisco Bay Area Dec 6-7, during a one-week tour of several US cities.

Fuzhou, a port city and the capital of Fujian province, plays a key role in China's maritime trade.Fujian is also known as Fukien.

The delegation, headed by Yang Yue,secretary of the CPC Fuzhou Municipal Committee,met with Song Ru'an, deputy consul general in San Francisco, andChinese expatriates from Fujianat a reception hosted at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California, on Sunday evening.

"Fuzhou's economy has maintained rapid growth," Yang said. "In 2014, its GDP totaled$760billion."

The first stop for the delegation was Tacoma, Washington. This year will mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of sister-city relations between Fuzhou and Tacoma, a city near Seattle.

In 1994, President Xi Jinping,then chairman of the Standing Committee of the Fuzhou Municipal People's Congress, signed the sister-city protocol with Harold Moss, former mayor of Tacoma, in Fuzhou.

"We are willing to work with Tacoma to further accelerate the progress of the friendly and cooperative relations between the two cities," Yang said.

The Fuzhou delegation invited Tacoma city officials to the Youth Olympic Games in Fuzhou next year, Du Weiguang, member of the delegation, told China Daily.

The group will travel from the Bay Area to Boston on Monday for more meetings and will leave for China from the East Coast, Du said.

"We will sign another protocol with the City of Boston to establish a new sister-city relationship upon final confirmation of the officials of Fuzhou and Boston," Yang said.

"We will visit Intel in Santa Clara and HTC in Boston," Yang said at the reception.

Aspart of Fujian, Fuzhou is the ancestral home of many Chinese Americans who settled in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Wang Xiuhong, the president of the Western Fukien Association, told China Daily: "Yang's speech last night was veryinspirational. I can see big differencesof the current Fuzhou and that of 30 years ago when I emigrated from Fukien to US."

Others in attendance were JiangBo, deputy mayor of Fuzhou;Zhang Yuansheng, municipal deputy secretary-general of Fuzhou; Lin Hanjuan,director-general of the Foreign Affairs Office of Fuzhou; and four senior government officials.

zilian@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 12/09/2014 page2)