MBARARA – In an effort to transform and develop the infrastructure in Mbarara Municipality, leaders led by Mayor Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi have signed a five-year inter- city infrastructure development agreement with the city of sanya highland province of the People’s Republic of China.
This agreement comes after the president of the Republic of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni met with the People’s Republic of China’s president Xí Jìnpíng in Sanya city in 2015 on how Mbarara Municipality can be twinned with Sanya city. That when he came back he gave a directive to the ministry of foreign affairs to handle the matter. It should noted that last year a delegation from Mbarara led by Robert Kakyebezi went to China to visit the geographical set of Sanya city in a bid to devise means on twinning the two.
The delegation from China’s meeting was held at Igongo Cultural and country Hotel in Biharwe Division Mbarara Municipality on Tuesday.
In a return visit, on Tuesday a delegation from China led by Zhang Yufei visited Mbarara Municipality and the two teams met at Igongo country Hotel where they signed an agreement that is aiming at skills development, tourism, agriculture, education, culture and science and technology.
Robert Kakyebezi, in his welcome remarks commended the government of the Republic of China for continuous support to the Ugandan government through various investments. Kakyebezi hopes that this corporation will yield much in relation to developing Mbarara into a city status.
He asked them to come and establish industries in Mbarara and create more employment opportunities for the local natives. “we managed to move around the city of Sanya it is very amazing, the infrastructure development, we were told that it’s one of the world’s tourism center, so we call upon you to come and invest in Mbarara so that we can transform this town of ours, we know our roads are still poor but we hope with this agreement, everything will change”. Kakyebezi opined.
Zhang Yufei one who led the delegation and doubles as the vice chairman Sanya People’s Congolese(SPC) noted that Sanya is the world’s largest international tourism city and this has been caused by venturing much in culture, tourism, and modernized agricultural firms.
The teams later signed the agreement and on behalf of Mbarara Kakyebezi signed and Zhang signed on behalf Sanya city.
“The Republic of Uganda and the city of Sanya highland province of the people republic of China after friendly consultations they agreed to establish sister city relationship, both sides agreed to carry out various kinds of cooperation is fields of skills development, tourism, culture, education, and infrastructure development,regular contacts shall be maintained between the leaders and relevant departments of the two sides, facilitate consultations, exchanges and cooperation as well as matters of common concern, this agreement is made in both languages that is Chinese and English which makes it authentic and shall be entered into force on the date of signature. This agreement is valid for five years and at the end of fifth year, if neither of the sides proposes to terminate it, it will be automatically extended,” the agreement reads.
