Busan City Opens New Horizon in Urban Diplomacy... Sister and Friendly City Agreements Signed with Luanda, Mombasa, and Dili

Agreement Ceremony with 3 Cities at City Hall on the 25th at 4 PM

Sister City Agreements with Luanda Province, Angola and Mombasa County, Kenya

Friendship and Cooperation Agreement Signed with Dili City, East Timor

On the 25th at 4 p.m., Busan City will hold a series of agreement ceremonies at the City Hall International Protocol Room to sign sister city agreements with Luanda Province, Angola, and Mombasa County, Kenya, as well as a friendship and cooperation city agreement with Dili City, East Timor.

Busan City Hall.

In the case of sister cities, an administrative partnership requires approval from the local council, while friendship and cooperation cities represent a preliminary stage before that.

This is the first time that the city has consecutively signed sister and friendship cooperation city agreements with three cities in one day among the 41 cities in 31 countries with which it has established agreements so far.

At the ceremony, Mayor Park Hyung-jun, Manuel Gomes da Concei??o Homem, Governor of Luanda Province, Aharub Ebrahim Khatri, Chairman of the Mombasa County Assembly, Guilhermina Filomena Saldanha Rebeiro, Mayor of Dili, and other high-ranking officials from each city will attend to sign the sister city or friendship cooperation city agreements between the cities.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun meeting with the Governor of Luanda Province, Angola, during his Africa tour last March.

Luanda Province is Angola’s largest port and one of the major trade ports in West Africa, a key oil-producing country in Africa with abundant natural resources. With a population exceeding 10 million, it serves as a major gateway in West Africa, and it is expected that Busan and Luanda will closely cooperate in urban infrastructure sectors such as transportation, housing, air pollution, and water and sewage systems.

The sister city relationship with Luanda Province was established after Mayor Park Hyung-jun visited Africa as a special presidential envoy in March, where he met with Angola’s President Louren?o and Foreign Minister Ant?nio to discuss mutually beneficial cooperation directions for development cooperation between Korea and Angola.

Following this meeting, Mayor Park met with Governor Homem of Luanda Province to discuss various cooperation plans and jointly signed a letter of intent for the Busan-Luanda Province sister city agreement, leading to the conclusion of this agreement.

Once the sister city agreement with Luanda Province is finalized, the two cities plan to strengthen cooperation in detailed fields such as education, health, environment, research, infrastructure, technology development and transfer, talent cultivation, and information and communication technology (IT), sharing development experiences and continuing sustainable exchanges.

Mombasa County is the gateway to East Africa and Kenya’s most important port city and one of its most prosperous cities, ranking as the second-largest city in Kenya. Mombasa, the starting point of the railway to Uganda and Tanzania, and Busan, a port connecting the Eurasian continent and the Pacific Ocean, share similar geographical conditions.

The sister city relationship with Mombasa County was first discussed in 2021 during a meeting between Mayor Park and Mwende Mwinyi, the Kenyan Ambassador to Korea. Subsequently, during a summit between the two countries in November last year, the Kenyan President expressed willingness to establish a sister city relationship with Busan, and earlier this year, Ambassador Womenjun and the Governor of Mombasa County held detailed negotiations on the sister city agreement.

In February this year, a Busan City working delegation (Director of Foreign Affairs and Trade) visited Mombasa in person to deliver Mayor Park’s letter of intent for the sister city agreement, which led to the conclusion of this agreement, marking the fruit of active exchanges between the two cities and countries.

Once the sister city agreement with Mombasa County is finalized, the two cities will promote mutual exchanges and technical cooperation in maritime, port, logistics, fisheries, climate change, and healthcare sectors, and jointly cooperate in special economic zones, digital finance, human exchange projects, and coffee industry development.

Dili is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, located in the northeastern part of Timor Island in Southeast Asia. Like Busan, it is a port city with Dili Port and serves as the economic, political, educational, and cultural center of East Timor.

The friendship and cooperation city agreement was initiated after a meeting in March this year between the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to East Timor and the Mayor of Dili, when the Mayor of Dili, Guilhermina Filomena Saldanha Rebeiro, sent a letter of intent expressing a desire to establish a partnership with Busan. Subsequently, the city held detailed negotiations with Dili to finalize the agreement.

Once this friendship and cooperation city agreement is signed, the two cities will continue practical cooperation that drives mutual development, including exchanges of public officials and experts, tourism promotion, information sharing on overall urban infrastructure management such as waste disposal, and technical cooperation on climate change response.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “This sister city agreement is the first in 10 years since the sister city agreement with Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, in 2013, and it is the first time that Busan has signed sister and friendship cooperation city agreements with three cities in one day.” He added, “This agreement is expected to greatly expand Busan’s global hub city network in Africa and Southeast Asia, opening a new horizon for Busan’s city diplomacy.”

He emphasized, “We will actively exchange with Mombasa County in Kenya, Luanda Province in Angola, the major gateway cities of East and West Africa, and Dili City, the largest city of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, in various fields and build practical cooperative relationships with these cities.”

With the signing of the sister city and friendship cooperation city agreements today, Busan will have established sister and friendship cooperation relationships with a total of 44 cities in 34 countries.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.