Cape Breton and Dalian, China in sister-city deal

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia—The Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) and the City of Dalian, Liaoning Province in the People’s Republic of China have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) laying the groundwork for an official sister-city relationship between the two regions and port cities.

Like Sydney, Dalian is a port city. It boasts the largest ice-free harbour in northern China and is one of the most modern in the world. It is the second largest trans-shipment hub in China and processes more than ten million containers a year. Sydney is an active cruise, ferry and bulk cargo harbour. It is also developing a container port and logistics park able to accommodate Ultra Large Container Vessels within a Foreign Trade Zone.

This announcement will open the door to commercial, cultural and educational exchanges. A cultural and trade delegation will be visiting Cape Breton from Dalian in May 2016. In the meantime working teams will be established to identify practical opportunities for the two regions to cooperate in educational and commercial undertakings. The focus of these efforts will include educational exchanges, tourism, port development, mineral extraction and fisheries.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to partner with one of the largest port cities in the world. It fits our long term aim of participating in China’s exciting global maritime trade strategy. In addition to port cooperation, we see very real opportunities to promote mineral, manufacturing and fisheries exports. From our months of preparatory work with them we know that City of Dalian and Liaoning Province will make terrific partners. This was made possible by Harbor Port Development Partner’s strong global network”, said CBRM mayor Cecil Clarke.

“This affords an opportunity to strengthen Sino-Canadian relations. We see promising opportunities for expanded trade in both directions, as well as investment opportunities. We are excited about the proposed development of Sydney’s Container Terminal and Logistics Park. We will make available our experience and expertise in container and large scale transshipment operations,” said Fu Bin, party secretary, vice-chairman of the Port of Dalian Group Co. Ltd. commenting on the signing of the MOU.

Cape Breton Regional Municipality has officially granted Harbor-Port Development Partners (HPDP) the exclusive right to market the port of Sydney for development, including building the financial and operating consortium to construct a state of the art container terminal and logistic park able to accommodate the latest generation of ultra large container vessels.

“We have worked for months laying the groundwork for this exciting sister city relationship. Our job is to assemble the right partnerships to develop Sydney’s deep water harbour and this new relationship with Dalian and Liaoning Province is an important building block in this larger effort”, said Albert Barbusci, CEO of HPDP following the announcement.

Known for its fashion and architecture, Dalian is a modern port city located on the southern tip of the Eastern Liaodong Peninsula. Dalian is the financial, shipping and logistics centre for Northeast Asia and has a significant history of being used by foreign powers for its ports. With the Bohai Sea on its northwest, and the Yellow Sea on its southeast, Dalian consists of 260 islands of different sizes. With 10 municipalities and counties, as well as five economic development zones Dalian is a gateway to the world. Dalian is the province’s second largest city with its population totaling 6.20 million and growing.