The governments of Taiyuan city in North China's Shanxi province and Xiamen in East China's Fujian province signed an agreement on Sept 8 in Xiamen, promoting friendly exchanges and expanding the existing partnership between the two sides.

Taiyuan and Xiamen are cities with a long history and rich culture, well-developed tourism and huge development potential and they have a good foundation for expanding their working cooperation. In 1993, the metropolises got together for trade and became sister cities.

The signing of the agreement will establish a more pragmatic and effective exchange and cooperation mechanism for them.

This will be especially so in the areas of government services, science and technology, industrial information technology, culture, sports and tourism, staff training, agriculture, finance, exhibition and conventions.

Later on Sept 9, the culture and tourism bureaus in both metropolises and companies in their respective culture and tourism sectors signed partnership agreements at a cultural and tourism promotion for Taiyuan in Xiamen city.

These agreements covered tourism information sharing, resources development, mutual promotion of markets, and product development.