Hu Jianjin (right), head of the publicity department of the Wenzhou municipal Party committee, receives the certificate for the 2022 Culture City of East Asia. [Photo/WeChat account: wenzhoufabu]
Wenzhou – a historic coastal city located in the southeastern part of East China's Zhejiang province – was conferred with the title of 2022 Culture City of East Asia at the 12th China-Japan-South Korea Cultural Ministers' Meeting, held in Beijing on Aug 30.
It was given the appellation at the event along with three other cities – Jinan city in East China's Shandong province, Oita prefecture in Japan and Gyeongju city in South Korea.
The four cities will carry out a wide variety of international exchange activities in culture, tourism, education and sports from 2022 – as well as have priority to participate in State-level foreign cultural and tourism promotion activities.
The Culture City of East Asia program was officially launched by China, Japan and South Korea in 2013, becoming the first international cultural city naming event in Asia. It is also currently deemed the international brand with the highest value in China's cultural field.
In recent years, Wenzhou has laid great emphasis on the protection and inheritance of culture – upgrading public cultural services, including the building of new libraries in urban and rural areas.
By virtue of its global network of overseas Chinese, the city also built an overseas publicity center and five citywide bases to promote its local culture and enhance its global influence.
As a Culture City of East Asia, plans are for Wenzhou to make full use of its abundant cultural resources, its pioneering spirit for reform and opening-up and its diaspora of citizens from Wenzhou who live around the world.
It will leverage them to carry out diverse cultural and tourism cooperation with other cities in China, Japan and South Korea, as well as show a poetic, dynamic, open and happy Wenzhou to the world, according to Hu Jianjin, head of the publicity department of the Wenzhou municipal Party committee.
Wenzhou city has long been committed to promoting its distinctive culture among foreigners. [Photo/wendu.cn]
