The following cities have been identified by the Foreign Affairs office of the International Relations Division, Foreign Affairs Office of Guangdong People’s Government in Guangzhou as possible candidates for twinning. These candidates were forwarded under the Memorandum of Understanding For Supporting the Establishment of Robust Twinning Relationships between Local Governments in British Columbia and Guangdong, China, signed by Minister Ida Chong on belhalf of the Province of British Columbia in November 2007. Please contact the Ministry if your community has an interest in twinning with any of these cities and we will facilitate the contact with the appropriate authorities in China.
Shaoguan City
Shaoguan city is located in the north of Guangdong Province, known as the northern gateway to Guangdong. The city covers an area of 18,400 square kilometers, with a population of 3.15 million.
Shaoguan is an important road transportation hub in South China as well as an important land passage connecting the northern China, the middle and lower reaches of Changjiang (Yangtze) River and South China coast. It is a traditional commodity distribution center in the border area of Guangdong, Jiangxi and Hunan Province.
Shaoguan is the major forest area in China. It is an key base of timber forest, water-source forest, natural forest and bamboo in Guangdong, and an ecological shield for the Pearl River Delta. The whole city has a forestland of 1.27 million hectares, a stumpage reserve of 64.65 million cubic meters and forest coverage rate of 71%, ranking first in Guangdong Province. The related products include timber, bamboo, turpentine, ginkgo, eucommia bark, mushroom, black fungus, chestnut and rapeseed. Major agricultural products include rice, vegetable, sugarcane, peanut, tobacco leaf, fruits, tea and flowers.
Shaoguan is known as the base of nonferrous metals, with 49 proved reserves of minerals and 218 mineral deposits. The main minerals include coal, lead, zinc, copper, iron, tungsten, antimony, cement limestone and granite.
Shaoguan is an important power-generating center in Guangdong, with an installed capacity of nearly 2309.5 megawatts and an annual generation capacity of nearly 10 million megawatt-hours. The City has established an industry system consisting of power, metallurgy, textile, machinery, coal, building materials and other industries. In recent years, rapid growth is witnessed in transportation, post communication, catering and telecommunication.
Shaoguan has a long history and is blessed with numerous cultural and historical attractions. It boasts 11 national-level and 19 provincial-level sites of natural sceneries, protection areas, forest parks, key temples and relics. Nanhua Temple, the key temple of national protection, is regarded as the ancestral home of Southern Chan Sect. Mount Danxia, the world’s geology park, is an 4A-Grade national natural attraction and China's geological and geomorphic natural protection area. It has the reputation of “China’s Red Rock Park”.
Heyuan City
Heyuan City is situated in the northeastern part of Guangdong, covering an area of 15,800 square kilometers. The population totaled 3.34 million by the end of 2004. The City is the converging juncture of Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Guangzhou-Meizhou-Shantou Railway, and boasts South China's largest marshalling station in Longchuan County. Dongjiang River can accommodate hundred-ton-class cargo ships, leading southward to Huizhou, Dongguan and Guangzhou.
Heyuan features predominantly mountainous areas with abundant reserves of forestry, minerals and hydropower. It is one of the key forestry bases in Guangdong, with a forest coverage rate of 72% and an annual growth volume of woods as large as 1.765 million cubic meters. Heyuan has large high-grade mineral reserves that are proven to contain more than 40 kinds of ores, among which reserves of iron, tungsten, tin, fluorite and rare earth rank the first in Guangdong. Xinfengjiang Reservoir (also known as Wanlvhu Lake) of 13900 million cubic meters is noted for its quality water. Hydropower reserves reach 1500 megawatts. Xinfengjiang Hydropower Plant, the largest of its kind in Guangdong, is located in the city proper with installed power-generating capacity of 300 megawatts.
Local economy witnesses rapid growth, with the establishment of an industrial structure focusing on metallurgy, building material, electronic products, textiles, medicine and food stuff. The service industry sees speedy advancement with eco-tourism taking the lead.
Heyuan is entitled “China’s Top Tourist City”. The City boasts alluring scenery featuring clear water, green mountains, blue sky and white cloud. The popular tourist attractions include Xinfengjiang National Forest Park (Guishan Mountain and Wanlvhu Lake), the geological scenes and natural relics like fossils of dinosaur's bones and eggs and fossil group of ammonite. Heyuan has a variety of local products, such as Chinese Kiwi fruit, Jiulian Mushroom, Heyuan Garlic, Hakka wine, purified and mineral water of Xinfengjiang River, summer bed mat of woven bamboo chips, spring sweet orange, green tea and potted landscape.
Shanwei City
Shanwei is located on the southeast coast of Guangdong Province, overlooking the South China Sea in the south and facing Hong Kong to its west. The city covers a land area of 5,271 square kilometers, and sea area of 23,800 square kilometers with over 90 islands, 11 ports and 3 bays, accounting for 14% of the Province total. The population totaled 3.06 million by the end of 2004.
Shanwei city is an emerging port city with a 300-kilometer-long coastline. Abundant in marine products, Shanwei is an important production base for aquatic products and salt. The pillar industries include ocean fishery, seaculture and fishery processing. Shanwei Port is one of the six major national fishing ports，with high-scale aquatic products such as hairtail, cuttlefish, sierra, grouper, lobster，sea hedgehog as well as algae such as laver, Gracilaria verrucosa and gulfweed. Shanwei enjoys an area of 1670 hectares for shoals farming, producing prawn, oyster, jade shellfish, abalone, seahorse and other species. Green turtles and pearl are the main products of freshwater farming.
The main mineral resources include tin ore, pyrite, granite, kaolin, rare earth, quartz sand and mineral water. There are 16 rivers with respective catchment area of over 100 square kilometers flowing across the city. 572 water-conserving projects have been built, including 2 large and 18 medium-sized reservoirs. The total water resources discovered amounts to 7.272 billion cubic meters with potential installed power generation capacity of 165.3 megawatts.
At present, Shanwei has established an industrial system featuring integrated development of electronic products, garments, wool manufacturing, shoemaking, toys, Christmas handicraft, jewelry processing, fruit processing and aquatic product processing. It boasts the largest aquaculture base for abalone in the Province and the largest aquaculture base for sea horse in China. Agricultural sideline products such as vegetable, fruit, seafood, fowl and livestock made their ways to the markets in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the Pearl River Delta and some to Hong Kong. Shanwei has initially established itself as the logistic supplier for Hong Kong, Macao and the Pearl River Delta area.
Yangjiang City
Yangjiang is located in the southwestern coast of Guangdong Province, serving as a transportation hub connecting west Guangdong with the Pearl River Delta. It covers an area of 7,813 square kilometers, with a population of 2.6 million.
Surrounded by mountains and facing the sea, Yangjiang enjoys a coastline of 476 km with abundant marine resources. It boasts a national first class port, Yangjiang Port, and other 7 important ports of national and provincial level. Yangjiang is abundant in squid, abalone, shark’s fin, jellyfish, crab, prawn, horse line fish, grouper etc. with the biggest production base of shark’s fin. It enjoys the reputation as the land of fish of Guangdong with both total and average volume of aquatic products ranking the first in the Province. It is also rich in mineral reserves, in particular copper, rare earth, quartz sand, iron ore, limestone and granite.
Yangjiang is entitled "China’s Top Tourist City". The 7.4 –km Silver Beach has been recorded in Guinness World Records. Big Horn Bay Scenery of Hailing Island has been listed as a national 4A-Grade tourist attraction. Spring Bay ---- Lingxiao Crag has been listed as the provincial tourist and holiday resort. Yangjing has hosted a number of International Beach Volleyball Championships, International Kite Festivals, Beach Volleyball Match and Indoor Male Volleyball Match of the 9th National Sports Games, National Fire Balloon Championship, National Surfing Championship, and National Sail Championship. All the events have made Yangjiang a more well-known attraction for tourism, conference, exhibition and sports events.
Yangjiang Kite has a history of over 1400 years and was awarded the title of “Home of Chinese Kites” in 1993. The local government marks September 9th in the Chinese lunar calendar the “Kite Festival”, and hosts annual kite flying contest, which attracts numerous kite fans from all over the world.
Yangjiang is a coastal city in rapid growth and has established ten pillar industries including hardware, rare earth, mechanical and electrical machinery, building materials, metallurgy, sugar, foodstuff, textiles and garments, and timber industry. Yangjiang’s traditional handicrafts enjoy a long standing reputation, namely “three treasures” – kitchen knives, lacquer ware and preserved soybeans. It is the biggest production and export base of knives and scissors in China with the production accounting for 60% of the national total and the exports making up 80%, selling to over 50 countries and regions. It was entitled “Capital of Chinese Knives and Scissors” in 2001. Meanwhile, Yangjiang is also an important production base for grains, edible oil, sugar, fish, pigs and poultry.
Maoming City
Situated in the southwest of Guangdong Province, and adjacent to South China Sea, Maoming city stretches 11,458 square kilometers，with a population of 6.68 million.
Maoming is known as “China’s Southern Oil City”. It is the largest petrochemical base and a key energy base with the biggest crude oil refining capacity and modern refining equipment. The pillar industries include petrochemical, metallurgy and power generation. Maoming Petrochemical Company excels as a leading enterprise with an annual oil refining capacity of 13.5 million tons and ethylene production capacity of 380,000 tons.
Maoming is blessed with many kinds of mineral resources, with the reserves and quality of oil shale and kaolin ranking the first and jade ranking the third in the country. The reserves of gold, tin, titanium, zircon, rare earth, china clay, granite top the Province.
Maoming is famous for its “high-quality, high-yield and high-return” agriculture featuring fruit and vegetable. It is “the biggest fruit production base of China” as well as the biggest supplier of vegetables to northern China in winter. It is the biggest production base of grain, edible oil and meat in the Province. The area for growing fruits extends 290,000 hectares. Banana, longan, litchi, orange are the main products for exports. Litchi’s output accounts for 25% of the country’s total.
Maoming has readily accessible traffic networks and well-established infrastructure facilities by rail, road and waterway. Maoming Port is a National First Class Port opening to the outside world with an annual handling capacity of 17.59 million tons.
Yunfu City
Yunfu Municipality is situated in the Midwest of Guangdong, and serves as a transportation link connecting Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao with China’s Southwestern Provinces. The City covers an area of 7,779 square kilometers, with a population of 2.6 million. Overseas Chinese and compatriots residing in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan amount to 394,000. The number of returned overseas Chinese and their dependents, the relatives of the compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan totals 424,000.
Yunfu is famous for its wealth of marble and pyrite. It has long been known as "Stone and Pyrite Capital". The reserves and quality of pyrite are both rated first in the world. It has the biggest reserves of ilmenite in Guangdong and second biggest reserves of sillimanite in China. Other mineral resources such as gold, silver, copper, granite, limestone, marble and Kaolin are also worth exploiting. The stone processing has a history of over 200 years in Yunfu, and continues to expand with an annual sales of stone materials of US $480 million. The City has become China’s biggest production base of stone material and an international distribution center. It is known as the City of Stone with over 3,800 stone processing enterprises along the National Highway extending many kilometers. The products vary from granite, marble, synthetic stone to stone crafts and stone furniture of 1,000 varieties in 23 series.
Good momentum of growth is also witnessed in the sales of stainless steel and textiles. The special local products include turpentine, Chinese cinnamon, wampee without nucleus, King orange, litchi, pod, bamboo shoots, wood, tea and stone artistic items.
Attractive tourist destinations are too many to be mentioned individually. The Guo’en Temple in Xinxing County, the Dragon Hill Hot Spring, the Coiling Dragon (Panglong) Grotto, the Stone Inscription on High Precipice inscription of the Dragon Shrine Crag where Taoist rites were practiced, are known far and wide.